Jama’at HQs in Srinagar sealed

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SRINAGAR: A week after the Government of India banned it for five years, the Jama’at-e-Islami J&K’s central office in Srinagar was sealed on Thursday by government authorities.

The office located at Batamaloo, a stone’s throw from the civil secretariat and police lines, was central to all the functioning and administration of the Jama’at. It housed a conference room, a library, and offices of various Jama’at functionaries. Mumin, the Jama’at-run newspaper, was also published from the same building.

Locals in the area said that the building which used to bustle with people wore a deserted look today. According to the JeI spokesperson, more than 400 Jama’at members have been arrested while many have gone into hiding.

The ban on Jama’at is the third in its history. According to Iymon Majid, a PhD scholar who studied the JeI’s politics at Jamia Millia University in Delhi, the party was previously banned during the 1970s and again in the 1990s.

The Jama’at’s chief spokesperson, Advocate Zahid Ali, and top scholar Mufti Mujahid Shabir Falahi, were booked under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) today. Others arrested include the party Ameer, or chief, Dr Abdul Hamid Fayaz, Ghulam Qadir Lone (former secretary general), Abdur Rouf (Ameer Islamabad district), Mudasir Ahmad (Ameer Tehsil Pahalgam), Abdul Salam (Dialgam), Bakhtawar Ahmad (Dialgam), Mohammad Hayat (Tral), Bilal Ahmad (Chadoora), and Ghulam Mohammad Dar (Chak Sangran).