Mirwaiz, Lone manhandled at seminar on Kashmir, 21 arrested

Chandigarh, Nov 25 (PTI) All Parties Hurriyat
Conference leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Bilal Lone were
Thursday heckled allegedly by activists of right-wing Hindu
organisations and Kashmiri Pandits during a seminar in north
Indian city of Chandigarh after which 21 people were arrested
for rioting.
There was commotion when the activists from among the
audience charged at Farooq, who was seated on the dais along
with Lone. At that time, a person, believed to be a
journalist, had got up to put a question to the Mirwaiz who
was speaking.
Scores of people had gone inside the hall at Kisan
Bhavan here which barely had a seating capacity of 50-60. And
making matters worse, nearly 30 people sat in the vacant space
in front from where the Mirwaiz was addressing.
During the pandemonium, some of the activists
manhandled the two separatist leaders and the commotion
continued inside the hall for nearly 10 minutes before police
stepped in and cordoned off the dais and took the Hurriyat
leaders to safety.
In the melee, the activists punched Farooq, who fell
from his chair. The activists smashed the window panes of the
seminar hall by throwing flower pots kept and shouted slogans.
"Twenty people, including seven women, were arrested
for rioting and we are examining video tapes of the event,"
Chandigarh SSP Naunihal Singh said.
Among those who have been arrested include several
activists of BJP and all those arrested were later released.
When the activists were taken to the police station,
some local Bharatiya Janata Party leaders held a protest
against their arrest.
A strong posse of policemen was put on duty at the
Sector 36 police station to disperse the BJP and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad activists. Police also resorted to baton charge and
used force to disperse the BJP activists.
The seminar on 'Kashmir Problems in Reference to
Indo-Pak Relations' was organised by Internationalist
Democratic Party of northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The incident comes over a month after a shoe was
thrown at hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani
during a seminar in India's capital New Delhi on October 21.
The shoe missed Geelani, who was seated on the dais. The
seminar had also witnessed protests by a group of people
including Kashmiri Pandits.
Commenting on the incident, Jammu and Kashmir Chief
Minister Omar Abdullah said, "It is a reaction to their
politics and policies. And it is bound to happen. I don't
condone it...I believe it is a battle of ideas and
ideologies."