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Indian Communist leader slams ‘denial of basic democratic rights’ over Kashmir detention
Kashmiri women shout slogans and march on a street after Friday prayers in Srinagar shout slogans and march on a street after Friday prayers in Srinagar

COMMUNIST Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury has protested to Indian President Ram Nath Kovind over his detention in Srinagar on Friday, when he and Communist Party of India leader Doraisamy Raja were held at the city’s airport while trying to visit party members in Jammu and Kashmir and denied entry to the state.

Mr Yechury said the decision to prevent their visit to Jammu and Kashmir — which is in uproar following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s revocation of Article 370 of the constitution that guaranteed it autonomy — was a denial of their “basic elementary democratic rights.”

The visit was in order to meet CPI-M central committee member Mohd Yusuf Tarigami, a four-times elected member of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, which was dissolved late last year by India’s central government. But Mr Yechury says he and Mr Raja were told their presence in Srinagar was a threat to law and order.

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