Srinagar: Senior pro-freedom leaders Dr Muhammad Qasim Faktoo and Dr Mohammad Shafi Shariati, who are serving life sentences, were shifted Saturday from Srinagar’s Central Jail to Jammu jails.

Dr Faktoo, the ameer of Muslim Deeni Mahaz, was shifted to district jail Udhampur while Dr Shariati to sub-jail Hiranagar in Kathua district, official sources told Kashmir Narrator.

The Home Department of J&K had issued orders (Home/292/2018 and Home/293/2018) on 26 February and asked the police to shift the duo to two separate jails in Jammu district.

Dr Faktoo completed 25 years of his imprisonment last month. He did his postgraduation and doctorate during the detention and has also authored several books on Islam and Kashmir.

Dr Shariati was arrested in 2011. Both of them have been convicted of a murder.

The decision to shift the two leaders, sources said, was taken in the wake of the escape of a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant Abu Hanzala, a Pakistani resident, from Srinagar’s SMHS hospital where he had gone for a checkup on 6 February. Hanzala, arrested in 2014, was lodged at the Central Jail Srinagar.