JAMMU, July 15: Indian police on Tuesday arrested a top Kashmiri separatist leader for the second time over his alleged links to the funding of mujahideen groups in the disputed state, officials said.

Detectives from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Yasin Malik in Jammu, Kashmir’s winter capital.

They said Malik had defied a court summons to appear before a judge in New Delhi, who is trying a long-running terror-funding case against him. Malik faces charges of secretly receiving funds from Pakistan to fuel the separatist drive in held Kashmir.

He was first arrested in March 2002 after two alleged separatists, arrested for smuggling 100,000 dollars, said the illegal funds were meant for Malik.

Malik, 35, denied any knowledge of the seized cash. He was released on bail in November by the new state government.

Malik, who is seen as a moderate separatist, leads the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) which is a member of Kashmir’s main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference.

As the news of Malik’s arrest reached his home area of Maisuma in Srinagar, the summer capital, several dozen JKLF supporters led by senior leader Javed Mir, poured on to the streets shouting anti-Indian slogans, witnesses said.

Police used batons and fired teargas shells to disperse them and detained Mir and two other JKLF supporters.

The protest forced shops to close and personnel from BSF were deployed in the area to check more trouble.—AFP