Restrictions tightened in Srinagar on death anniversaries of Mirwaiz Farooq, Gani Lone

Restrictions were tightened in and around Srinagar city on Friday and security forces deployed in strength as the authorities looked to prevent any congregation of separatist groups to mark the death anniversaries of Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone.

The national highway connecting Srinagar to north Kashmir's Baramulla and Kupwara districts was sealed off, as were roads leading towards the city centre from the civil lines area, officials said.

Movement towards the Eidgah martyrs graveyard where the slain leaders -- Farooq and Lone -- are buried is not allowed, they said.


People with movement passes and those having emergencies were, however, allowed to cross the barricades set up across the city, the officials added.

Farooq and Lone were killed by terrorists of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen in 1990 and 2002 for opposing a growing gun culture in the Kashmir Valley. They were both considered advocates of finding a lasting solution through peaceful means.

People's Conference chairman Sajad Lone, Abdul Gani Lone's son, paid tributes to his father in a series of tweets.

"Remembering my father Abdul Gani Lone who was killed on this day nineteen years ago. Killed for expressing his ideas. Killed for speaking the truth. Truth is as much of a rarity now as it was then.

"But what gives me some solace is that those who opposed him and created that false narrative that culminated in my father being killed- that crowd some of them still alive were better dead than alive. They saw what my father was mercifully spared from seeing," Sajad Lone said.

Mirwaiz Farooq was shot dead by three terrorists on May 21, 1990, and it was conspired by then so-called commander of banned Hizbul Mujahideen Abdualla Bangroo.

Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead on the same day in 2002 at an Eidgah when he was on his way to pay homage to Farooq Mirwaiz.