Police today held up JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik hours before the funeral prayers in absentia for party organizer Amanullah Khan, who expired in Pakistan on Tuesday.

In a statement, spokesman of the JKLF said, "Ahead of Ghayebana Namaaz-e-Janaaza (funeral prayers in absentia) for JKLF supreme leader Amanullah Khan, Malik was arrested by police."

The spokesman asserted that authorities have enforced "curfew" in Lal Chowk, Maisuma, Kokerbazar, Kothibagh, Abi Guzar, Court Road and other adjacent areas in Srinagar. Amanullah Khan, one of the creators of pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), expired in Pakistan's Rawalipindi.

The 82-year-old Kashmiri separatist leader was enduring chronic lung disease for the last one year. He was believed to have hatched the killing of Ravindra Mhatre, the number two in the Indian Consulate in Birmingham in 1984.

Though Khan had constituted the JKLF in 1977, he was transferred to the background after militant groups strengthened their dominance in Kashmir with a bloody campaign that started in the late 80s. He penned two books, 'Free Kashmir' (English) and 'My Autobiography' (in Urdu), and about three dozen booklets and pamphlets in English and Urdu emphasizing different facets of the Kashmir issue.