Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik was taken into preventive custody and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the chairman of the Hurriyat Conference's breakaway faction, was placed under house arrest on Wednesday morning.

A joint contingent of police and paramilitary forces laid a cordon around Geelani's Hyderpora house early in the morning.

A JKLF spokesman said their leaders were taken into custody from its Maisuma headquarters.
 
The preventive arrests followed apprehensions that the two leaders may join mourners in Bijbehara in Anantnag district, where a handicapped person died in police custody on Tuesday.

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