Mehbooba’s PSA detention on for 3 months longer
Sajad Lone freed from house arrest
A day before Id-ul-Zuha, the authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday released former minister and People’s Conference chairman Sajad Gani Lone from house arrest. However, the detention of former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) was extended by another three months, official sources here said.
Mr Lone, who was among J&K’s political leaders and activists taken into preventive custody ahead of the Centre’s abrogating Article 370 and splitting 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 his “older brother”, was moved to his residence here in February but placed under house arrest.
The authorities, meanwhile, extended the detention of Ms Mufti, in whose government Mr Lone served as a minister for three more months. She was among hundreds of politicians, trade union leaders, lawyers and civil society activists taken into preventive custody in August 2019. Many, including the PDP president, were later detained under the PSA. Although most key political figures, including former CMs Farooq and Omar Abdullah, were freed earlier this year, Ms Mufti is in custody, even after being shifted to her home, now a “subsidiary jail”.
The PDP called the three-month extension of her PSA detention “a highly undemocratic, unconstitutional and inhuman approach of the government.”