The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday locked Kashmir’s biggest Jamia Masjid in Srinagar to prevent pro-Palestine protests, but major protests broke out in Shia-dominated Kargil and Budgam districts against Israeli actions in Gaza.
Security personnel were deployed around the Jamia Masjid in anticipation of the protests.
The mosque management said chief priest Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is also the moderate Hurriyat chairman, was put under house arrest to prevent him from delivering his Friday address.
Kashmir has in the past witnessed large pro-Palestine protests, but all forms of agitation have literally been banned here since the 2019 scrapping of special status.
Anjuman Auqaf Jama Masjid Srinagar, the managing body of the mosque, said in a statement that the authorities closed all the doors of the central mosque since morning and informed them that no Friday prayers would be allowed.
The management expressed “regrets and surprise over the administration’s action” and shared pictures and videos of the locked masjid on its social media accounts.
Friday prayers at the mosque, once a major separatist platform, have been disallowed on several occasions in the last four years.
The Auqaf said Mirwaiz “has yet again been put under house arrest early morning today”. He was recently released after four years of house detention in the wake of the dilution of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
Mirwaiz had on Wednesday expressed solidarity with the people of Palestine and called for a resolution to the ongoing conflict.
There was no official word about why the mosque was closed.
Palestinian militant group Hamas had called for protests on Friday in support of the Palestinians.
While the situation in erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir remained largely peaceful on Friday, hundreds of people took to the streets in Kargil district of Ladakh and Budgam district in the Valley to protest Israel's bombing of Gaza.
Protesters waved Palestinian flags and raised anti-US and anti-Israel protests in Kargil. The protest marched through the streets of the Kargil town but dispersed peacefully.
