India extends detention of two separatist leaders amid tensions in Kashmir

Indian authorities have extended the detention of two separatist leaders arrested days after a car bomb killed dozens of paramilitary troops in the disputed Kashmir.

Yasin Malik, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and Zahid Ali, a spokesman for the recently-banned Jamaat-e-Islami party, were being moved to a jail in Jammu, police said. 

They were arraigned under a controversial law that allows for suspects to be held for up to two years without charge. The order is part of a crackdown on militancy and secessionist campaigns in Kashmir. 

A senior Indian government official said more than two dozen other separatist leaders, most of them affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, could be detained in coming days.

At least 300 separatists, most of them from Jamaat-e-Islami, have been arrested in the past three weeks.

Reacting to Malik's detention, a JKLF spokesman denounced the "arbitrary arrest", calling it a "glaring display of frustration" of Indian authorities.

Malik's supporters called for a shutdown in parts of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar to protest against his detention.

The JKLF chairman renounced violence and declared a ceasefire in 1994, but he has been imprisoned multiple times since then.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, denounced "illegal and undemocratic tactics" used by Indian authorities. He and other separatist leaders have called for a strike in Kashmir on Friday.

In a separate development on Thursday, a grenade explosion at a bus station in Jammu -- the Hindu-majority region of Kashmir -- killed one person and wounded nearly 30 others.

Police suggested that the blast could have been aimed at fomenting tensions among different communities in the city. 

SS