SRINAGAR: Feeling concerned about his personal safety, the Jammu and Kashmir is reportedly contemplating to restore security cover to the region’s chief Muslim cleric and chairman of his faction of separatist Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Muhammad Umar Farooq.
Reliable sources here said that the Mirwaiz may be provided with Y+ or Y level security if it is decided to restore his security cover, and if he agrees to it. Y+ is a security detail of eleven police personnel including 2-4 commandos whereas Y category entails deployment of eight personnel, including 1 or 2 commandos. High-risk politicians, government functionaries and other individuals are provided with various levels of security by the government, depending on the threat perception to the person.
The Mirwaiz is among 18 separatist leaders whose security cover was withdrawn or downgraded by the government in February 2019 on the premise that it was a wastage of the erstwhile state's otherwise scarce resources. A spokesman of the J&K home department had then said, “It was felt that providing security to these separatist leaders is a wastage of scarce state resources which could be better utilised elsewhere".
The government had also withdrawn the security of 155 other political persons and activists “who did not require the security provided to them based on their threat assessment and their activities.” The home department had said that after withdrawing or downgrading the security of these politicians over 1,000 police personnel and over 100 vehicles were “freed to do regular police work”.
50-year-old Mirwaiz was released from a prolonged house detention on September 22 following which he delivered a customary sermon before the Friday congregation and offered prayers in Srinagar’s Grand Mosque. He had been placed under house arrest by the J&K authorities in a massive crackdown on opposition parties ahead of the centre's abrogating Articles 370 and 35A and splitting the state into two Union territories on August 5, 2019.
As he came out of the mosque on that day, a group of youth had chanted pro-freedom slogans. The police subsequently arrested ten youths. Calling them "hooligans", a police statement had said, "They have been arrested for trying to vitiate a peaceful atmosphere outside Jama Masjid yesterday after the Friday (congregational) prayers."
Though the police had said that they are being booked "under the relevant section of law", the sources said that those among them who have no previous record of indulging in such, or similar pastime could be released after “proper counselling”, but “habitual troublemakers” may be booked under J&K’s tough law -the Public Safety Act.
Asked why the police personnel who were present at the scene on that day did not try to stop these youth from chanting pro-aazadi slogans, a senior police official told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity, “Our primary concern at that time was that no harm should come to the Mirwaiz.”
