Srinagar: Awami Itehand Party (AIP) chief Er Sheikh Abdul Rashid was Monday taken into preventive custody alongwith some supporters at historic Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of the summer capital.
J&K lawmaker Er Rashid, who was accompanied by scores of his supporters, besides two youth, who were wearing police uniforms, started a march from Municipal Park at Polo ground against recent thrashing of policemen, including an officer, by Army personnel in police station Gund in central Kashmir district of Ganderbal recently.
The AIP carried out a mock protest as ‘helpless’ policemen, an AIP spokesperson said here this evening.
The AIP activists posing as policemen were holding banners which reads “Our Uniform Could Not Save Us” and “we take oath never to commit atrocities against our own Kashmiri Brothers”.
Pedestrians also joined the march and when they reached Lal Chowk, police swung into action and arrested Er Rashid alongwith several others.
The MLA from Langate in the frontier district of Kupwara before his arrest told reporters that Monday’s mock protest was a wakeup call for the J&K police so that the message reaches to every local Jawan and Officer that they cannot be trusted despite humiliating their own people. He said let every cop take the pledge to respect the fellow Kashmiri brothers who are fighting for right to self determination and facing worst at the hands of Indian state.
