Abdullah, Mufti and Farooq Abdullah were put under preventive detention in the aftermath of August 5, 2019 crackdown by the Centre
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, already under house arrest since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, were Thursday booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) by the J&K administration.
Reacting to the development, Mufti’s daughter Iltija tweeted, “Ms Mufti received a PSA order sometime back. Slapping the draconian PSA on 2 ex J&K CMs is expected from an autocratic regime that books 9-year-olds for ‘seditious remarks’. Question is how much longer will we act as bystanders as they desecrate what this nation stands for?”
Iltija Mufti has been operating her mother’s Twitter handle following the detention of the former chief minister.
Recalling the day when her mother was arrested and jailed, Iltija penned down a note that she had received from her mother in a tiffin box, rolled in the middle of chappati which read: “They have taken an undertaking that I won’t be using social media to communicate. In case someone else does it, he’ll be booked on charges of impersonation. Love you and miss you a lot.”
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) February 6, 2020
The J&K Public Safety Act, 1978 is a preventive detention law, under which a person is taken into custody to prevent him or her from acting in any manner that is prejudicial to “the security of the state or the maintenance of the public order”. It is very similar to the National Security Act that is used by other state governments for preventive detention.
Apart from the former chief ministers, two other National Conference leaders — general secretary Ali Mohammed Sagar and senior PDP leader Sartaj Madani — were booked under the PSA. Their six-month preventive custody was ending on Thursday.
Sagar wields a support base in downtown Srinagar, while Madani is the maternal uncle of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.
Abdullah, Mufti and Farooq Abdullah were put under preventive detention in the aftermath of August 5, 2019 crackdown by the Centre on politicians following the revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state.
On December 30, the J&K administration had released five politicians in the Valley who had been in detention since August 5. Former PDP MLA Zahoor Mir, Bashir Mir of PDP, Dr Ghulam Nabi of National Conference, former MLA and NC leader Ishfaq Jabbar, and former legislator Yasir Reshi were released from Srinagar’s MLA Hostel.
(With PTI inputs)