Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq visits Delhi for first time since abrogation of J&K special status

The management of Srinagar’s grand mosque, where Mirwaiz gives Friday sermons, has said that he has been allowed by the government to visit Delhi. “(Our) president, Mirwaz-e-Kashmir Mohammad Umar Farooq, was allowed by the state authorities to travel to New Delhi yesterday,” the Anjuman Auqaf Jamia Masjid Srinagar said in a statement on Tuesday. “Mirwaiz had conveyed the personal nature of his visit after which the authorities allowed him.”

Mirwaiz, who is also the Valley’s chief cleric, was put under house arrest by the central government on August 4, 2019, a day before it abrogated Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. When he was released from house arrest in September last year, Mirwaiz was allowed to deliver the Friday sermon from the historic mosque for the first time since 2019.

However, a few weeks after his release, the government not only barred him from delivering Friday sermons again but also shut the the grand mosque for Friday prayers fearing public rallies in support of Palestine.

“It is pertinent to mention here that despite his release from house detention in September 2023, he is repeatedly detained at his house especially on Fridays,” the Anjuman said in its statement. It said that Mirwaiz would return to the Valley in a “couple of weeks”.