Farooq Khan visits historic Hazratbal shrine, offers prayers and interacts with people

Farooq Khan, advisor to the Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor, visited the famous Hazratbal shrine located on the outskirts of the downtown city here to pay his obeisance and also to address the concerns about security of the revered place.

Accompanied by officials, Khan offered prayers at the shrine, which contains a relic believed by the people of Kashmir to be Prophet Muhammad's hair, and also took a round of the historic place.

Khan ordered a fire-safety audit of the shrine.

"An immediate fire-safety audit must be conducted at the shrine and we must ensure that devotees pay obeisance here without any hassles," he said.

In the wake of a small fire incident that had taken place on Thursday night at the shrine, Khan directed installation of fire hydrants, smoke alarms and CCTVs to prevent occurrence of such incidents at the revered shrine.

Later, the residents around the shrine wanted that people should not be frisked at the shrine. However, Khan, who is a former IPS officer and retired as Inspector General rank, reasoned out to them that the security was meant for devotees as well as the shrine.

"Please do not forget 1993 and 1996 when militants took refugee in the shrine and held many people hostage. Let us ensure that sanctity of the mosque is maintained and for that security was a necessary tool," he said.

In 1996, nine militants and two policemen were killed when terrorists of the banned JKLF had laid a seige of the mosque. The stand-off ended after three days and 20 JKLF militants surrendered.

Khan was one of the police officers who had acted tough against the militants.

A similar seige of the shrine had taken place in 1993, which ended only after intense negotiations for 32 days and a safe passage to terrorists.