SRINAGAR: Former J&K minister and People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone and PDP's youth wing president Waheed Para briefly tasted freedom on Wednesday after six months of preventive detention, only to find themselves under house arrest in their respective Srinagar residences in less than an hour.When Lone and Para were being escorted out of the makeshift detention centre at the MLA Hostel here in the afternoon, the buzz was that other top functionaries of mainstream political parties would also be freed in a day or two. The optimism dissipated somewhat after it turned out that the move was only a change of address for the duo as of now.Officials maintained that the plan to release detained activists and political functionaries in batches remains unchanged, pointing out that two prominent names — former PDP legislator Aijaz Ahmad Mir and trade unionist-cum-businessman Shakeel Ahmad Qalander — had been freed just a day earlier.More than a dozen mid-level political functionaries have so far been released from the MLA Hostel, to which all of them had been shifted from various makeshift jails at the beginning of winter. However, there is still no official word on when the three detained former CMs — Farooq Abdullah , his son Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — would be released.The J&K administration had invoked the Public Safety Act to put Farooq under house arrest at his private residence on Gupkar Road in August. National Conference vice-president Omar has been detained at Hari Niwas Palace since the night of August 4, hours before the central government moved Parliament to nullify Articles 370 and 35A and revoke J&K's special status.Mehbooba, the PDP president, spent some time at the same address as Omar before being shifted to a guesthouse outside Srinagar. She was moved to another guesthouse in the heart of the city in December.