India frees Kashmiri chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq after 4 years

OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: The Indian authorities freed Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IIOJK) chief Muslim cleric and influential chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday after greater than 4 years of home arrest.

The 50-year-old was detained together with different political leaders and 1000’s of residents when the federal government cancelled the Muslim-majority area’s constitutional semi-autonomy and imposed federal rule in 2019.

A months-long web shutdown adopted as India bolstered its armed forces within the area to include protests.

He known as for the discharge of “quite a few political prisoners”.

Heavy safety, together with counter-insurgency police and commandos, have been deployed across the mosque on Friday.

“Our beloved and our king of hope has returned to this mosque after so lengthy,” common worshipper Bashir Ahmed informed AFP after the prayers.

“How can I not be weeping with pleasure?”

For the reason that imposition of direct rule, authorities have curbed media freedoms and public protests.

Strikes aimed toward bringing “peace and prosperity” to the area additionally allowed Indians from elsewhere to purchase land and declare authorities jobs within the territory, a coverage denounced by critics as “settler colonialism”.