Three leaders detained on eve of DDC poll counting, says PDP

SRINAGAR: Three Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders, all close aides of party chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, were detained on Monday, ahead of poll count for District Development Council (DDC) election tomorrow.

In the evening, PDP leader Naeem Akhtar was detained from his residence in Srinagar.

“My father has been detained at this unearthly hour. There was no order or Govt instruction shown to us. We don’t know the ground of detention or the duration. Cannot relive through the horror of last year but will stand by him always (sic), tweeted Akhtar’s daughter Shehryar Khanum

Akhtar was the third PDP leader to be detained ahead of Tuesday’s counting of votes for the first-ever DDC polls in J&K. The voting for 280 DDC seats in J&K – 140 each in Kashmir and Jammu – was held in eight phases.

Earlier, in the day two PDP leaders Sartaj Madni and Peerzada Mansoor Hussain were detained from their residences in south Kashmir.

Madni is the maternal uncle of PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and Mansoor her close aide.

Police have remained tightlipped about the detention of three PDP leaders, which has come just a day before the counting of votes of DDC election, the first major electoral exercise in J&K after Article 370 revocation by centre on August 5 last year.

Reacting to detention of party leaders, Mehbooba tweeted, “J&K admin is on an arrest spree today. PDPs Nayeem Akhtar too has been abducted by J&K police & is being taken to MLA hostel. Looks like BJP is planning to manipulate DDC results tomorrow & don’t want any resistance. Democracy is being murdered in J&K.”

“Total lawlessness as PDPs Sartaj Madni & Mansoor Hussain have been arbitrarily detained today on the eve of DDC election results. Every senior police officer here is clueless as it is ‘upar say order’. No rule of law in J&K anymore. It is out & out Gunda Raj,” she had tweeted after detention of Madni and Mansoor.

Earlier, on the conclusion of the eight-phase DDC polls on December 19, Enforcement Directorate had attached properties worth Rs 12 crores of National Conference president and Gupkar Alliance chairman Farooq Abdullah in J&K Cricket Association money laundering case.