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Mirwaiz placed under house arrest and barred from Khawaja Digar gathering as tens of thousands are denied their religious leader
ALLNEWS
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was placed under house arrest on 17 August 2026 and denied permission to address the annual Khawaja Digar religious gathering at Khanqah-e-Naqshband Sahib in Srinagar, one of the most significant Sufi spiritual commemorations in Kashmir's religious calendar. The Mirwaiz states that tens of thousands of devotees had gathered for the occasion and that his prevention from attending amounted to direct interference in the religious practices of the Kashmiri people.
The Mirwaiz stated plainly that his continued restriction from religious gatherings is linked to his political outlook and his raising of issues that the Indian regime finds inconvenient, including calls for the restoration of Article 370 and criticism of the suppression of Muslim religious rights across Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The Khawaja Digar gathering is centuries old. The Indian regime has now barred Kashmir's most prominent religious figure from addressing it. Eid prayers at the Eidgah have been banned for eight consecutive years. The Jama Masjid is periodically sealed. Seminaries have been shut. Scholars are imprisoned. The Mirwaiz is repeatedly locked in his home. The Indian regime continues to allege it governs Kashmir without interfering in the religious life of its Muslim-majority population. The evidence of what it actually does accumulates weekly.
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