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I am under house arrest, claims Bhat

Onkar Singh in New Delhi and Mukhtar Ahmed in Srinagar

The chairman of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, Abdul Gani Bhat, on Friday claimed he was under house arrest, which was denied by the Jammu and Kashmir police.

Talking to rediff.com from his residence in Srinagar on phone Bhat said, "When I woke up in the morning I found scores of policemen surrounding my house."

"When I asked them why they were here they said that I have been put under house arrest and I would not be allowed to move out," he said.

"We were scheduled to go to Delhi on Friday to hold talks with the members of the Kashmir Committee [headed by former Union law minister Ram Jethmalani]. Now I would not be able to go to Delhi," he said.

But Deputy Inspector General of Police Farooq Ahmed said that Bhat and other Hurriyat leaders were 'free to go anywhere'.

Bhat also claimed that Maulvi Abbas Ansari, executive member of the Hurriyat, Bilal Lone, chairman of People's Conference, Javed Mir, acting chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Shabir Shah, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, were also under house arrest.

The alleged house arrests elicited a sharp reaction from the Kashmir Committee.

The committee described the alleged detentions as a 'deliberate attempt to scuttle the peace process initiated to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio'.

A four-member Hurriyat delegation led by Bhat was scheduled to arrive in Delhi on Friday for holding the second round of talks with the Kashmir Committee members.

The committee convenor, Ashok Bhan, said the arrests showed the 'true face of the Abdullah regime', which was 'never interested' in the restoration of peace.

Jammu and Kashmir Elections 2002: The complete coverage

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