Srinagar/New Delhi (Reuters) – A prominent Kashmir separatist leader led Friday prayers at the region’s grand mosque after he was released by Indian authorities from four years under house arrest.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chairman of the faction of Kashmir’s main separatist political alliance, was one of several activists and politicians detained after New Delhi revoked the special status of its only Muslim-majority region in 2019.
“All my rights and liberties were curtailed…. we are not so-called separatists or peace disrupters but realist resolution-seekers,” Farooq told thousands who had gathered at the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srinagar, where he is also head priest.
A senior Indian government official said Farooq, 50, and two other preachers were released following a high court order. The official said the house arrest had been a critical step to maintain peace in Kashmir.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region has been at the heart of more than 70 years of animosity since the partition of British-ruled India into Muslim Pakistan and majority Hindu India in 1947. Two of the three wars they have fought since have been over Kashmir, which is divided between them, and thousands have been killed during a 30-year insurgency in the Indian-ruled part.
Farooq’s family and aides are part of more than three decades of separatist activity by some Muslim politicians who have long resented what they see as heavy-handed New Delhi rule. Some want to join Pakistan, while others have called for complete independence for Kashmir.
“One part of Kashmir is with India and other two parts are with Pakistan and China and we believe that it will be complete after all the three parts are merged,” Farooq said, adding he wanted a peaceful resolution.
Farooq became head priest of Jamia Masjid when he was 17 years old, after his father was killed by gunmen in 1990, soon after the insurgency in the region began.
