The government has listed 27 charges against former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah to detain him under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA), according to details accessed by The Hindu .
The charges include three First Information Reports (FIR) and 16 diary entries made in different police stations in the Kashmir Valley. While two FIRs are registered in Srinagar, one was registered in Delhi. The charges date back to statements made from 2016.
One of the charges said Mr. Abdullah, MP for Srinagar, had violated “freedom of speech” by inciting violence. “He misused his political position” for asking new generation to pick up arms and “propagated secessionist ideology”.
The complaint also said he had made 13 statements around Article 370 and 35A “for the purpose of rebellion against India”.
On August 5, Home Minister Amit Shah had moved two Bills to revoke the special status of J&K under Article 370 and bifurcate the State into two Union Territories. Mr. Abdullah, like other political leaders in the State, was put under house arrest from the night of August 4.
The chargesheet said Mr. Abdullah had warned people that the Centre's move to revoke the special status was being done to change the demography of the Muslim majority State. On two instances in July and December 2018, he gave statements against the sovereignty of India by “saying Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was an integral part of Pakistan.”
The chargesheet alleged that at a public meeting in Hazratbal in December last year, Mr. Abdullah had offered his support to the separatists, adding that “we stand by you and will not let your efforts go waste.”
The charge sheet said the MP had remarked that the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed was not done by militants but “the Indian Government did it.”
In one of his political rallies in run up to the 2019 parliamentary elections, Mr. Abdullah told a gathering that they should be ready for “mass struggle” after elections to seek freedom from India.
On Sunday night, hours before the Supreme Court was to hear a petition by Rajya Sabha member Vaiko against detention of Mr. Abdullah, the Home Department of J&K issued orders to detain him under the PSA for 12 days.
