SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Sunday resorted to lathi-charge and teargas to disperse a Moharram procession taken through the heart of Srinagar city, while another was prevented from being taken out from Dalgate. Several people were injured in the police action and incidents of stone-pelting. Police took 50 people into preventive custody and clamped Section 144 in the city. Leading Shia cleric and Hurriyat leader Moulvi Abbas Ansari was placed under house arrest.

The Government has not allowed Moharram or Eid-e-Milad processions in Srinagar for the past 17 years fearing they may turn into pro-freedom demonstrations.

"Fifty people were taken into preventive detention by the police," SP East Srinagar, Anand Jain said. Mr. Jain added that three policemen were injured in the stone-pelting.

As the processionists, including Syed Abid Rizvi of Tehrek-e-Wehdat and Syed Imtiyaz Haider of the Syed Ali Shah Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference, raised pro-Islam slogans, they were stopped by the police who later resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse them. The crowd, however, reassembled minutes later near the Women's College on Moulana Azad Road and started marching towards Dalgate. This prompted the police to resort to tear-gas. Eyewitnesses said that one of the shells hit a youth who was rushed to the SMHS hospital for treatment.

"We used force only to the extent that we do in other cases," Mr. Jain said. Officials said that no permission was sought for the procession.

A bid to take out a Muharram procession at Hyderia Hall in Dalgate area of Srinagar was foiled. Authorities deployed a large contingent of police outside the Hall and prevented assembly of mourners there.

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