Two Jammu and Kashmir politicians - Sajjad Lone and WaheedPara - were released today, exactly six months after they were detained by the central government ahead of the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir's special statuslast year.

However, Kashmir's three most prominent leaders - National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti - continue to remain in detention.The centre has not provided any definite date for their release, only letting on that they will be freed at an "appropriate" time. According to the law, the detentions of Omar Abdullah and Ms Mufti ends this week.

Sajjad Lone of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference and Waheed Para of the PDP were among the politicians kept in detention at the MLAs' hostel.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration had on Tuesday released two leaders - former PDP MLA from Wachi in south Kashmir Aijaz Ahmad Mir and trade leader Shakeel Ahmed Qalandar, who is the former president of the Federation Chamber of Industries, Kashmir. Since Sunday, a total of eight leaders have been released from preventive custody.

Hundreds of political leaders of Kashmir have been placedunder detention or house arrest since August last year as the governmentannounced its move to end special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir underArticle 370.

The detention of Farooq Abdullah, 83, under the stringentPublic Safety Act or PSA was extended by three months in December. The PSA is astringent law that enables detention without trial for three to six month.

Jammu and Kashmir faced a number of restrictions in themonths after the government's move on Article 370.

These have included the banning of marches and rallies, thedeployment of large numbers of soldiers and the blocking of mobile and internetservices, something the Supreme Court said violated part of the fundamentalright to freedom of speech. Mobile and internet services have been restored inthe Valley.