SRINAGAR: The three top separatist leaders in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir were put under house arrest yesterday, police said, as security forces struggled to contain new anti-India protests.

Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, Syed Ali Geelani and Yasin Malik were locked in their homes with “strict instructions by police not to try to move out,” a police official told AFP on condition that he not be named.

Yasin Malik, another popular separatist leader and chief of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, has been under house arrest since Monday.

Police and federal paramilitaries were also deployed in thousands in Srinagar ahead of the first Friday prayers of Ramadan. But the deployment failed to stop groups of Muslims in Srinagar and the surrounding Kashmir Valley from taking part in new demonstrations after coming out of mosques after weekly Friday prayers, witnesses said.

Thousands of Muslims staged sit-in protests in parts of Kashmir yesterday, resuming demonstrations against New Delhi’s rule in the disputed Himalayan region after a three-day break, witnesses said. “We want freedom,” the protesters shouted after weekly Friday prayers.

Amid heavy rain, hundreds in Srinagar chanted “we want freedom” before dispersing peacefully. Similar peaceful protests were held in other parts of the scenic valley. Separatists had told residents of the disputed area, which has witnessed an upsurge in anti-India demonstrations in recent months, to keep the protest movement alive.

The recent wave of unrest was triggered by a state government plan made public in June to donate land to a Hindu shrine trust in the valley. The decision was later reversed after massive Muslim protests, angering Hindus.

On Sunday, the government agreed to temporarily provide land to the trust during the period of Hindu pilgrimage, a move rejected by separatists.With the situation seen to be calming, a nine-day curfew was lifted on Tuesday, which was clamped on the Muslim-majority region to prevent independence rallies.

On Thursday, Geelani threatened to launch a “major agitation” against the government if he and other detained activists were not released by the end of Ramadan.

Geelani had planned to visit Hazratbal shrine, the region’s most revered Muslim site. Farooq, another detained separatist leader, routinely delivers a Friday sermon at the region’s main mosque in summer capital Srinagar. Police have been deployed in strength around Hazratbal and the main mosque, witnesses said.

Police also detained Masarat Alam, a hard-line separatist and close aide of Geelani, in a continuing crackdown on protest leaders.