Separatist leaders detained, shutdown hits life in Kashmir Valley
Srinagar, June 21: Authorities on Thursday placed senior separatist leaders under detention in the summer capital Srinagar to prevent their participation in a protest shutdown that derailed life in the Kashmir Valley.
Police took Muhammad Yasin Malik, Chairman of pro-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), into preventive custody here to stop him from taking out a protest march in the city.
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Syed Ali Geelani were placed under house arrest at their residences on the outskirts of Srinagar.
The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), a grouping of separatists headed by Geelani, Mirwaiz Farooq and Malik, called for the shutdown against the killing of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari and continuing killings of civilians in Kashmir.
Bukhari, editor of "Rising Kashmir" newspaper, was shot dead along with two security guards in Srinagar on June 14.
Shops, public transport, other businesses and educational institutions remained shut on Thursday at most places in Srinagar while attendance in banks, post offices and government offices was thin due to non-availability of public transport.
Private transport and some three-wheelers, however, plied in uptown areas of Srinagar.
Taxis and buses carrying tourists to Sonamarg, Pahalgam and Gulmarg hill stations operated as usual. Train services were suspended in the Kashmir Valley as a precaution.
No incident of stone pelting was reported in the Valley.
The shutdown also derailed normal life in all other major cities and towns of the Valley, where a separatist campaign has been raging since 1989.
Despite the shutdown, Governor N.N. Vohra and all senior bureaucrats of the state government attended their offices in the Srinagar Civil Secretariat on Thursday.
Vohra had on Wednesday too visited the Civil Secretariat and was presented a guard of honour by police though June 20 was a public holiday in the Valley on account of the annual festival at the Mata Kheer Bhawani shrine, the holiest for Kashmiri Pandits.
Vohra took charge of the Jammu and Kashmir administration after the PDP-BJP coalition government collapsed following the BJP's withdrawal of support to the PDP.
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What Trump did to Maduro, Modi has done to Nitish Kumar: Cong's Jairam Ramesh
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday took a swipe at the BJP over Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's decision to move to the Rajya Sabha, saying what US President Donald Trump did to then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now done to the JD(U) chief.
He also said that Kumar's decision to step down as chief minister is a betrayal of the mandate the people gave in assembly polls in November last year. Ramesh said the people of the state voted for Kumar's re-election and not for a BJP chief minister.
Ramesh's remarks came a day after JD(U) chief Kumar filed nomination papers for Rajya Sabha elections, marking a turning point in Bihar politics and virtually bringing the curtain down on his tenure as the state's longest-serving chief minister. The move has paved the way for a new government in the Hindi heartland state, likely to be headed by the BJP.
Expressing gratitude to the people of the state, Kumar had said on X, "For more than two decades, you have consistently placed your trust and support in me, and it is on the strength of that trust that we have served Bihar and all of you with complete dedication. It is the power of your trust and support that has enabled Bihar today to present a new dimension of development and dignity."
Asked about this major development in Bihar politics, Ramesh told PTI, "During the Bihar election campaign, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, had said that Nitish Kumar would not remain chief minister for long because the BJP's aim was to remove him. Ultimately, that is what happened."
Kumar hasn't even been chief minister for four months in the present term and he's being removed, Ramesh said.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, Ramesh said, "What Trump did to Maduro, Modi ji has done to Nitish Kumar. This is a coup"
The US military had seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their Caracas home on January 3 in a stunning operation that landed them in New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.
On Kumar's move to the Rajya Sabha, Ramesh said, "This was inevitable. This is a betrayal of the people of Bihar and the mandate they gave."
The mandate wasn't to make a BJP chief minister, but to make Nitish Kumar the chief minister.
"It's possible that tomorrow, (Chandrababu) Naidu is brought here and made a minister, a coup can happen there too. There was a coup in Maharashtra too, the split the NCP and Shiv Sena... This is all the work of the 'G2'," Ramesh said.
He said the Congress just has six MLAs in Bihar but it will continue to raise the issues of the people and Kumar's move to Rajya Sabha is a "betrayal of the mandate".
The Congress on Thursday had said a "leadership coup and regime change orchestrated by G2" has taken place and is a "huge betrayal" of the mandate of the people.
