Srinagar, India (CNN) -- Indian authorities Tuesday slapped a curfew on Srinagar and other towns after the arrest of a major separatist leader in an attempt to stave off violence that has killed over 100 people in the last four months.
Masarat Alam Bhat, the general secretary of the hard-line All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) group and a close aide of the octogenarian separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was arrested Monday evening in a Srinagar suburb.
Bhat has been evading arrest since June when he launched the so-called "Quit Kashmir campaign" which set off a sequence of shutdowns, protests, marches and curfews that have virtually brought life in Indian administered Kashmir to a standstill for over four months.
The accompanying clashes between pro-independence protesters and Indian security forces have left 108 dead and hundreds others wounded, some of them crippled for life.
CNN
