Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) has been extended to three months, a senior government official said. It was extended last month.
Dr. Abdullah, who was detained on August 5 and then slapped with the PSA on September 15, will remain in detention till the end of this year.
Under the PSA, a person can be detained initially for 12 days. Any detention beyond three months is ratified by the PSA Advisory Board. The current board that upheld Dr. Abdullah’s detention for a period of three months is chaired by former Jammu and Kashmir High Court judge Janak Raj Kotwal. The maximum detention period under the PSA, enacted in 1978, is two years.
J&K is all set to be bifurcated and downgraded into Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh October 31 onwards, the appointing day as per the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 passed by Parliament on August 5.
It was not clear when other political leaders like former Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, detained under Section 107 CrPc, would be released.
As per amendments made, the government mentioned 27 charges against Dr. Abdullah to detain him under the PSA and the orders were issued a night before the Supreme Court was to hear a petition on his detention on September 16.
The charges include three First Information Reports (FIR), 16 diary entries made in different police stations in the Kashmir Valley. One of the charges said that Dr. Abdullah, Srinagar MP, violated “freedom of speech” by inciting violence. “He misused his political position” for asking the new generation to pick up arms and “propagated secessionist ideology.”
