PHOTOS: Muharram processions taken out amid tight security

Authorities imposed curfew-like-restrictions in parts of capital Srinagarand disallowed the main Muharram procession in Srinagar on Friday. On Friday morning, contingents of police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force moved into the old city and uptown areas to enforce the restrictions.

Scores of Shia mourners made an attempt to takeout a procession in the uptown area of which was, however, foiled by the police.

Authorities have been disallowing the main procession which would begin from the uptown Abi-Guzar locality and culminate in the old city after passing through various localities since the beginning of militancy in 1989.

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However, small Ashura processions were allowed by the administration in the interior areas of the city where there is concentration of the Shia Muslims. Thousands of Shia mourners including women and children joined the processions which culminated at the various Imambaras in the city on Friday evening.

Shouting religious slogans, the mourners wound their way through various areas of the city where the authorities had made elaborate arrangements of security, medical and other facilities.

A huge Ashura procession was also taken out in the central Kashmir Budgam town Friday.

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The moderate All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq condemned the government ‘for forcibly prohibiting Ashura processions in several areas, using wanton force against mourners, and restricting movement of religious leaders’.

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti has lambasted the government for disallowing the Muharram procession and said that it was time that the administration reviewed the three decade old ban on Muharram processions on their traditional routes.

She said, “The ban must go once and for all and mourners should be allowed to use their traditional routes as has been the practice for decades before the ban was enforced.”

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