All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi. (File)Slamming the central government over its decision to arrest former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA), Lok Sabha MP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said that how anyone who had met Prime Minister Modi a day before Kashmir’s special status was withdrawn can be a threat now.
“I condemn the application of the draconian PSA against Farooq Abdullah. How can he be a threat if the Prime Minister himself met him a day before the abrogation of #Article370,” Owaisi said in a tweet.
I condemn the application of the draconian PSA against Farooq Abdullah.
How can he be a threat if the @PMOIndia himself met him a day before the abrogation of #Article370.
An 80-year-old former CM has been clubbed with separatist Masarat Alam. What message is the BJP sending? pic.twitter.com/PwS5qjtUXl— AIMIM (@aimim_national) September 16, 2019
Abdullah, who has been under detention since August 5, was booked under the PSA for being a “threat to public order” and may now remain under detention for one year or longer.
Attacking the central government, Owaisi said, “An 80-year-old former CM of Kashmir has been clubbed with separatist Masarat Alam. What message is the BJP sending?”
Owaisi also took a dig at the central government’s repeated narrative of normalcy in Kashmir saying, “If you can feel threatened by a former CM and a senior citizen, then what normalcy?”.
Abdullah is the second key political personality in J&K to be detained under PSA after August 5 announcements. Bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal was the first one. He was detained at Delhi Airport last month.
Under the Public Safety Act of Jammu and Kashmir, 1978 and as amended in 2012, the District Magistrate has powers to issue detention orders against any person he deems could be a threat to either the security of the state or public order.
Owaisi on SC’s permission to Ghulam Nabi Azad
The AIMIM MP also reacted to the Supreme Court’s permission to senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to visit Kashmir. He said: “Why should an MP have to seek the SC’s permission to visit his own land? Why ask him not to “do politics”?
On Monday, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that the Congress leader is free to interact with people during his visit to the Valley. Azad assured the court that he was not going to his home state to hold any political rally or event.
