| Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti Booked Under PSA: Reports | | | 
EARLY TIMES REPORT
SRINAGAR, Feb 6: The Jammu & Kashmir administration invoked the Public Safety Act (PSA) against former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti to continue their detention, reports said on Thursday. The stringent law, introduced in J&K since 1978, mandates the government to detain individuals for upto two years without being chargesheeted. Sajjad Lone, Waheed Para Released From Custody, Exactly Six Months After Being Detained.
Omar and Mufti are among the three topmost political leaders of the Valley, the third being National Conference president Farooq Abdullah. The trio were detained on August 5, hours before the Centre issued an executive order to repeal Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir. Since the last six months, the Abdullahs and Mufti have remained under detention.
With the invocation of PSA, the administration would be mandated to immediately extend the custody of Omar and Mehbooba by three months, without trial. The stringent law was earlier applied on Omar's father Farooq - in August last year - to put the 84-year-old former three-time J&K chief minister under detention.
Omar, 49, and Mufti, 60, have been former allies of the Centre-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While Omar was a Union Minister in the erstwhile NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mufti was the chief minister between 2016 to 2018, when the BJP had formed a government in alliance with the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
The reports of PSA being invoked against Mufti and Omar comes shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the Lok Sabha, justified the crackdown against the J&K politicians. The BJP, he said, was forced to break the alliance with the PDP as Mufti had issued remarks which questioned J&K's relationship with India.
"Mehbooba Mufti said , 'Kashmir made a mistake by joining India'. Are you justifying such kind of speech? Omar Abdullah said there will be such a quake that Kashmir will separate from India. Farooq Abdullah said after removal of Art 370 there won't be people left to fly the Indian flag in Kashmir. These are people who do not trust the people of Kashmir. We trusted the people of Kashmir, abrogated Art 370 and is taking steps for its progress," PM Modi told the Parliament. |
|
