They added at least 15 persons, including a police officer, were injured in the clashes that broke out after small groups of Shia youth took to streets in Lal Chowk, M A Road and Dalgate areas of the capital city to mourn the martyrdom anniversary of Karbala martyrs.
Police used force to disperse the processionists who had gathered under the banner of Tehreek-e-Wahdat-e-Islami. The processionists, however, offered stiff resistance and fought pitched battles with the police, raising pro-Islam and slogans against what they called "Kashmir's occupation by India."
Police later arrested about 65 activists of the party, including its senior leaders Nisar Hussain Rather and Dr Syed Kifayat.
Panic gripped Dalgate as the police, according to witnesses, fired in air and beat up the processionists.
Since the starting of freedom struggle in Kashmir in 1989, the authorities have banned the Muharram processions across the Valley, and if any is taken out it's met with force.
"Police used brute force to disperse the Muharram procession. They beat us with bamboo sticks and fired on us from a very close range," Muneer Ahmad, 35, told Greater Kashmir. "It's disheartening that the government is interfering in our religious matters," said Muneer, who was among the injured.
In the morning, Police cane-charged a Muharram procession taken out by hundreds of people near Exchange Road. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Forum Chairman Javed Ahmed Mir, who had joined the procession, was also taken into preventive custody.
Maulana Abbas Ansari, who heads Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen in the moderate Hurriyat executive, was whisked away by police soon after he came out of an Imam Bara after leading the Friday prayers as authorities apprehended that he might lead a procession in the city in violation of prohibitory orders in force, the sources said adding Ansari was taken to his Safakadal residence by the police and asked to remain indoors.
Protesting the police action, his supporters indulged in stone pelting on the cops who used batons to disperse them. Four persons were injured while nine others were taken into custody during the ding-dong battle.
Flaying the State Government for placing restrictions on his movement and using force to disperse Muharram processions in the city, Ansari said it is "unfortunate" the Government has once again banned the religious procession of Shias. "The Mufti-led Government is making tall claims about freedom to all but the ground situation is that the Government was scared of even allowing the religious processions," Ansari said.
The major clashes between the mourners and the police took place in Lal Chowk and its adjoining areas immediately after the Friday prayers when the slogan-shouting Shia leaders, accompanied by their supporters, made repeated attempts to take out the eighth Muharram procession.