The Jammu and Kashmir police on Thursday detained separatist leader and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman, Mohammad Yaseen Malik, while he was leading a protest march demanding the return of the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat, who was hanged in Tihar Jail in 1984 for killing an Indian diplomat in London.

Malik, accompanied by his two aides Javaid Ahmad Mir and Bashir Ahmad Bhat and a few dozen supporters, was leading a protest march from Maisuma in Lal Chowk area of the city when the police took him and his two deputies into preventive custody, official sources said.