J&K’s ex-CMs Omar & Mehbooba booked under PSA

SRINAGAR — The Jammu and Kashmir administration Thursday slapped Public Safety Act (PSA) against two former chief ministers—Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.

Abdullah who is Vice President of National Conference (NC) and Mufti president of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were detained on August 05 last year, when the Government of India announced the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of erstwhile State into two Union Territories—J&K and Ladakh.

Official sources confirmed that Omar and Mehbooba have been booked under PSA. “Their cases will be reviewed at an appropriate time,” he said.

Mehbooba’s daughter Iltija confirmed that her mother has been booked under PSA. She, however, said that a copy of PSA wasn’t available with her yet.

Both the leaders have been under preventive detention under section 107 of CrPC since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 05 last year.

Earlier, NC General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar and senior PDP leader Sartaj Madani, uncle of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, were slapped with PSA. The duo was shifted from MLA hostel to M5, a government building in Gupkar here.

Former chief minister Farooq Abdullah has already been slapped with a PSA and detained at his residence in Srinagar which has been designated as a sub jail.

It is in place to mention that PSA is a law enforced in Jammu and Kashmir by virtue of which a person can be detained for upto two years without trial.

Around 50 politicians in Kashmir were detained after the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir but most of them have been released now.

Speaking on President’s address in the Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “Mehbooba Mufti had said on August 05, that India has betrayed Kashmir. She said we made the wrong decision in 1947.”

“Do the people here support these statements? You believe in Constitution? Omar Abdullah had said abrogation of Article 370 would bring such an earthquake that Kashmir would separate from the country,” he said.

He added, “Farooq Abdullah had said the abrogation would open the way for Kashmir’s independence… Can anyone agree with such language?”