New Delhi: Just a few days after home minister Amit Shah took charge, the government shifted separatist leader Masarat Alam Bhat to Delhi’s Tihar jail. 

The National Investigation agency (NIA) and local police took Masarat to the national capital on Tuesday and he will be produced in Delhi's local court. Prior to this, the state government had slapped a Public Safety Act (PSA) on Masarat last Thursday.

Masarat, who is the general secretary of the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference is seen as the successor of Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

This move comes amid several punitive meaures taken up by the government to maintain law and order in Jammu and Kashmir. The authorities have already started tightening the noose around stone pelters in the region, who are involved in anti-national activities. 

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Moreover, their leaders are also facing the heat. Those who are accused of plotting against the nation and security forces deployed in the Valley are being arrested. Also to make sure that they don't give instructions from jail, they are being shifted from Jammu jail to Tihar jail. Masarat is the latest one to go through this.

The government had already sent Yasin Malik to Delhi's Tihar jail after the NIA secured a production warrant against him in connection with a terror and separatism funding case. The development took place after local RSS leader Chandrakant Sharma and his personal security officer were killed in an attack by two armed terrorists inside the Kishtwar hospital just 100 metres away from the police station in April. 

The state government uses Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978 of Jammu and Kashmir, to detain persons on suspicion of being a threat to national security, to the public order up to two years and one year without a trial respectively.

Mohammad Yousuf Mir who is also facing charges of disrupting law and order in the valley is expected to be brought to Delhi soon.