Mehbooba stays under detention
Curbs extended for 3 months; Lone freed
A day before Id-ul-Zuha, the authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday released former minister and People’s Conference (PC) chairman Sajad Gani Lone from house detention. However, the detention of former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) has been extended by another three months, the official sources here said.
Mr Lone who was among J&K’s political leaders and activists taken into preventive custody before the Centre abrogated Article 370 and split the state into two Union Territories on August 5 last year, tweeted on Friday, “Finally five days short of a year I have been officially informed that I am a free man. So much has changed. So have I. Jail was not a new experience. Earlier ones were harsh with usual doses of physical torture. But this was psychologically draining. Much to share hopefully soon.”
After spending more than six months in ‘subsidiary jails’ here, Mr. Lone , the 53-year-old separatist-turned-mainstream politician, who had after meeting Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in November 2014 called him as his “older brother” was moved to his residence here in February this year but placed under house arrest.
Meanwhile, the authorities extended the detention of Ms Mufti under whose government Mr Lone served as a minister for three more months. She too was among hundreds of politicians, trade union leaders, lawyers and civil society activists taken into preventive custody in August last year. Many of them including the PDP president were subsequently detained under the PSA.
Even though most key political faces including two other former chief minister Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah were freed earlier this year, Ms Mufti remains incarcerated even after being shifted to her home here which was declared a ‘subsidiary jail’.
Under the PSA, introduced in J&K in 1978 initially to deal with timber smuggling but later used by successive governments often against their political opponents, a person can be detained for a period of six months to two years without the authorities seeking a formal trial.
The PDP termed extension of her PSA detention for three months “a highly undemocratic, unconstitutional and inhuman approach of the government” and reiterated that “such vindictive measures will not deter the PDP from pursuing its core agenda and speak truth to power”.
The party spokesperson Syed Suhail Bukhari said that such measures are aimed at intimidating Ms Mufti and her colleagues.