NEW DELHI: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday offered legal assistance to Jama’at-e-Islami and JKLF, which have been banned on Friday for "promoting" secession of the militancy-hit state from the Union of India. Banning the outfit under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act after a high-level meeting on security chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, officials said the Centre is of the opinion that the JKLF is "in close touch with militant outfits" and is supporting extremism and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.

Senior PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Beg while addressing the party workers in Baramulla said they were ready to provide legal assistance to both JeI and Yasin Malik-led JKLF in Supreme Court and the High Court.

“We are ready to provide legal assistance to both the JKLF and JeI, provided they trust us,” he said.

Both JKLF and the JeI have been declared unlawful associations by the Centre.

The former chief minister and the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had termed the Centre's decision "ironical". Mufti said the ban on the Yasin Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front was a "detrimental step" that will turn Kashmir into an open air prison.

Malik is at present lodged in Kot Balwal jail in Jammu, and is likely to face trial in the three-decade-old case of kidnapping of Rubaya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and gunning down of four IAF personnel in Srinagar.

The JKLF was founded by Pakistani national Amanullah Khan in mid-1970 at Birmingham in the United Kingdom and came into prominence in 1971 when its member hijacked an Indian Airlines plane flying from Srinagar to Jammu.

The organisation was also involved in the kidnapping and killing of Ravindra Mhatre, an Indian diplomat posted the UK, in 1984. A week later, India executed Maqbool Bhat, a JKLF activist, who had been sentenced to death.

This is the second organisation in Jammu and Kashmir which has been banned this month. Earlier, the Centre had banned the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir.