The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday raided the residences of separatists Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah and Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai in Srinagar. Earlier, Yasin Malik was detained by the police. The detention came a few days after the state administration withdrew the security of 18 separatists. Nearly 150 people, mainly from the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir including its chief Abdul Hamid Fayaz, were detained during the intervening night of February 22 and February 23 following the Pulwama attack.

Those detained include Advocate Zahid Ali (spokesperson), Ghulam Qadir Lone (former secretary general), Abdur Rouf (Ameer Zila Islamabad), Mudasir Ahmad (Ameer Tehsil Pahalgam), Abdul Salam (Dialgam), Bakhtawar Ahmad (Dialgam), Mohammad Hayat (Tral), Bilal Ahmad (Chadoora), Ghulam Mohammad Dar (Chak Sangran) and others.

Though police termed the detentions as routine, officials privy to the developments said this is the first major crackdown on the organisation that is part of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate.

At least 42 CRPF personnel were killed in one of the deadliest terror attacks when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 80 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district that also left many critically wounded. More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.