Lieutenant-governor G.C. Murmu’s administration has extended Farooq Abdullah’s detention under the Public Safety Act by another three months, senior government sources said on Saturday.
The move followed recommendations from the state advisory board of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, they said.
The former chief minister, who was put under house arrest on August 4 and then booked under the draconian law on September 14 for three months, appeared resigned.
“Yes, they have done it but what can be done…. I will not react (to the decision). I don’t react to anything. Whatever Allah wills, will happen,” Farooq told The Telegraph over the phone in his first comments to any media organisation since being booked under the act that allows detention without trial for up to two years.
Farooq, 83, who represents Srinagar in Parliament, is lodged at his Gupkar home turned sub-jail. A relative said Farooq’s mobile connectivity had recently been restored on the condition that he wouldn’t speak to the media.
The last time the National Conference leader had spoken to the media was on August 6 when he forced his way out of his home to talk to reporters at a hotel nearby to express outrage at Union home minister Amit Shah’s claim in Parliament a day earlier that he had not been detained.
“The home minister lied to Parliament that I am not under house arrest… I forced my way out,” he had then told reporters as he broke down.
“This is not the India we chose. My India is a secular country which is for all its people, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians.”
Senior government sources said Farooq’s detention has been extended till March 14, based on the recommendation of the state advisory board, a three-member body headed by a former judge.
“The board takes feedback from several agencies, including police. The advisory board met on December 12 and recommended the extension. The home department approved it yesterday (Friday) and the order was issued today,” an official said.
Anantnag MP Hasnain Masoodi, who is also from the National Conference, expressed outrage. “The decision indicates that they don’t have the confidence in their own claims (of normality),” Masoodi, a former high court judge, told this newspaper.
“There was no justification for slapping the PSA on Dr Abdullah. The grounds are not convincing. It is wholly unjustified. This tells you how fake and far from reality their claims about normality are.”
Earlier this month, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had said that Farooq had written to him in response to a letter he (Tharoor) had written.
Farooq had complained that Tharoor’s letter had reached him late.
“I am sure this is not the way to treat a senior member of the Parliament and leader of a political party. We are not criminals,” Farooq’s letter, tweeted by Tharoor, read.
Farooq’s son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah is also in jail but he has not been detained under the PSA. Several close relatives, including his sister Khaleda Shah and uncle Mustafa Kamal, continue to be under house arrest.
Thousands of people were detained in Kashmir following the central government’s August 5 decision to scrap Kashmir’s special status under Article 370. While many of them have since been released, dozens of top politicians from the Valley’s pro-India camp are still in jail.
