Mir Ehsan and Ravi Krishnan Khajuria
letters@hindustantimes.com
Srinagar/Jammu: The invocation of the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) against former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, enabling their detention without trial for up to two years, drew flak in the Valley on Friday as a blow to the democratic process in the newly created Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
Even so, several people, especially in the Hindu-majority Jammu region, welcomed the move, noting that the administration often used the same Act to detain people when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference (NC) were in power in the erstwhile state.
The Jammu & Kashmir administration on Thursday booked four politicians, including NC’s Abdullah and PDP’s Mufti under the PSA. They completed six months in preventive detention on February 5.
Public Safety Act was invoked against them hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi targeted Abdullah and Mufti in a speech in the Lok Sabha, pointedly referring to their “ anti-Constitution” speeches before their detention in August last year, when the Centre nullified Article 370 that guaranteed J&K’s special status.
“It’s not in tune with democratic and constitutional practices. The former CMs didn’t break any law; still this stringent act was used against them,” said Noor Ahmad Baba, former head of the department of political science at Kashmir University.
He noted that Abdullah and Mufti had represented India or had been part of the Indian political system and were in alliance with national parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The preventive detention of both former CMs under the Code of Criminal Procedure was to end just before they were booked under PSA, a law under which a person can be detained for at least three months and up to two years without trial.
In December, the detention of former J&K chief minister and Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah, Omar’s father, under the PSA was extended by three more months.
Omar Abdullah’s cousin, Muzuffar Shah, vice-chairman of the Awami National Conference and currently under house arrest, said his family was not going to change its stand against the revocation of Article 370 because of such tactics being used by the administration.
“For our family it doesn’t matter whether we are under detention under preventive custody or PSA,” he said.
Ishfaq Ahmad, an information technology professional, said the administration’s move showed the uncertain future confronting J&K.
“The detention of the two former chief ministers shows how rampantly and blatantly PSA has been used in Kashmir to silence political dissent. Besides, the detention of former CMs shows the failure of the government to convince these leaders that abrogation of Article 370 was a step in the right direction.’’
The detention of the former CMs under PSA was discussed on social media and at shopfronts. Some noted that the same Act had been often used by erstwhile state governments when the two were in power.
“Today, the same medicine is being tried on them. Here we have people who have been booked under PSA 10 to 12 times even when these people ruled the state,” said Fayaz Ahmad, who runs a shop in Lal Chowk.
