SRINAGAR: Moderate Hurriyat chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was shifted to his home from a sub-jail in Srinagar last night as a high-level team from New Delhi embarks on the mission to break the deadlock in the Valley.
The six-member team comprising of former union minister and BJP leader, Yashwant Sinha, Member of Parliament, Jairam Ramesh and former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, will arrive in capital Srinagar today.
Sources said the team will meet with different stakeholders including both the mainstream and separatist leaders, trade bodies, rights activists, civil society, state and central security agencies as well as the ordinary people of the State.
Habibullah said the team will assess the situation in Kashmir and they will also "like to meet" the Hurriyat leaders who have been either jailed or detained in their homes since the uprising broke out on July 8.
Last evening, Mirwaiz was shifted from the Cheshmashahi sub-jail to his residence where he was put under house arrest, paving way for his meeting with the team members who, according to sources, had expressed reluctance about meeting him in jail.
However, Habibullah said the team is visiting the state in "private" capacity, "We are all coming to Kashmir in private capacity. It doesn't have anything to do with Track II or Track III. There is a lot of pain in Kashmir and we have come to share that pain," he told The Citizen.
The Hurriyat patriarch, Syed Ali Geelani, remains under house arrest at his residence in Srinagar's Hyderpora locality while the JKLF chief, Yasin Malik, is undergoing treatment at SKIMS hospital in Srinagar after a botched up injection during his detention period almost crippled his right arm. The team, sources said, will meet them as well.
The high-level team will also call on the J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and Governor NN Vohra during their visit to the state which comes nearly four months after the civil uprising broke out in the Valley.
The uprising which erupted with the killing of Hizb commander Burhan Wani in an encounter in Kokernag village of south Kashmir has left behind a trail of death and destruction with at least 94 civilians and two security personnel dead while more than 12000 are injured.
The south Kashmir's four districts of Kulgam, Pulwama, Anantnag and Shopian have been the centre stage of the prevailing uprising with maximum casualties reported from these districts.
Authorities have launched a massive arrest spree in the Valley to control the agitation with nearly 7000 people booked under various cases while as 400 persons, mostly Hurriyat activists, have been held under the 'draconian' Public Safety Act.
(Cover Photo Basit Zargar: New bunkers and barricades come up all over Srinagar)