Restrictions were imposed in seven police station areas of Khanyar, Rainawari, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj, Safakadal, Lal Bazaar and Maisuma to thwart the proposed procession.
Police and CRPF were deployed in huge numbers in sensitive areas of the city, and roads and major lanes were barricaded by spools of razor wires.
Hundreds of mourners attempted to take a procession on the traditional route form Abi Guzar to Imam Bara Zadibal.
But police and paramilitary forces stopped them near Clock Tower in Lalchowk and detained dozens of them in Kothibagh police stations.
During the Islamic month of Muharram, Shites across the world mourn the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein in the Iraqi city of Kerbala in the year 680.
The 8th and 10th Muharram processions remain banned in Srinagar due to “serious security and law and order problems” after the eruption of militancy in 1989. Before ban, 10th Muharram procession was taken out from Abi Guzar to Imam Bara Zadibal.
Only small mourning rallies and processions are allowed in selected areas with Shiite populations. However, the ban has been protested by the Shias, who accuse the government of religious infringement.
Abid Hussian Jaffiri, a Shiia mourner, criticized the government’s clampdown on the procession.
“The government eulogises sacrifices of Imam Hussian in Karbala, and the same government arrests and beats us when we try to take a procession. It is sheer hypocrisy. What kind of state we is this where religious mourning is not allowed,” he lamented.
Inspector General of Police, Kashmir range, Syed javaid Mujtaba Gillani, said that the police detained about 20 “miscreants who wanted to create trouble in Lalchowk.”
“The situation was under control and no untoward incident happened in the day in Srinagar. However, some miscreants wanted to create trouble in Lalchowk, and they were detained by police deployed there and later let off,” IGP told KNS.
Police had yesterday said that as a preventive measure, procession will not be allowed on traditional route. Meanwhile, processions in other areas of Srinagar and elsewhere in the Valley were allowed. (KNS)
