Ten persons have been arrested for allegedly shouting “anti-national” slogans and hurling stones outside Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik’s home on Wednesday, the Srinagar Police said on Thursday. Those arrested have also been booked under the Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act.

A special National Investigation Agency court in Delhi sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in a 2017 case related to “terror funding” in Jammu and Kashmir. Hours before the court’s verdict, the police said the accused persons shouted slogans and threw stones.

The protests only took place in Srinagar’s Maisuma area from where Malik hails. The police lobbed tear gas shells to counter the protestors who threw stones.

Residents also took out a march in the locality against the court’s order to convict Malik. However, the overall situation in the area remained largely peaceful.

The police on Thursday said that they are in the process of identifying more protestors and the “main instigators of the hooliganism” would be booked under the Public Safety Act that allows the government to detain individuals in custody without trial for up to two years.

“Such anti-national activities and provocative posture will be always dealt [with] strictly and with [the] full force of law,” the police added.

The Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act is frequently invoked against protestors in Jammu and Kashmir. According to National Crime Records Bureau data, only 60 cases of the anti-terror law were reported in Jammu and Kashmir in 2015. But in 2019, the latest year for which data is available, 225 cases were reported.

Unlawful activity is defined vaguely in the law as any action, whether by an individual or an association, which “disclaims, questions, disrupts or is intended to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India” or “causes or is intended to cause disaffection against India”.

The 2019 amendment to the Act allows the government to also proscribe individuals as terrorists and empowers more officers of the National Investigation Agency to investigate cases.