Former CM Farooq Abdullah Detained Under The J&K Public Safety Act Which Allows Detention Without Trial For 2 Years

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah who is presently a member of the Rajya Sabha, has been detained under the draconian Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (J&K PSA), which allows detention without trial for two years.

He was detained on the night of September 15, 2019 (Sunday), on the eve of the hearing of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) party leader Vaiko’s habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court, where the absence of any papers justifying the arrest would have been a major embarrassment for the central government.

Incidentally, the J&K PSA was first promulgated in 1978, under the Sheikh Abdullah government in Jammu and Kashmir.

In its original form, the law enables detention without trial for up to two years, and was supposedly meant to target timber smugglers.

However, over the years, multiple reports have emerged about how the draconian law has been increasingly misused, and young men in J&K are being charged under it indiscriminately.

In 2010, the Act was amended and some of its provisions made somewhat less strict. For “first-time offenders”, the length of detention was limited to six months, though detention can still be extended to two years “if there is no improvement in the conduct of the detainee”.

Though Farooq Abdullah has been under house arrest since August 5, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had claimed in parliament on August 6 that the National Conference leader was missing the session of his own volition. Yet, this claim was rebutted by none other than the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, although indirectly, when it allowed two National Conference leaders to visit Abdullah in his home recently.

Earlier, the Tamil Nadu-based Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party's (MDMK) General Secretary Vaiko has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court to produce former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah.

Vaiko, who is also a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, had sought a direction from the Supreme Court to grant Abdullah liberty to attend a conference in Chennai which was scheduled for September 15.

Vaiko had also written a letter to authorities in Jammu and Kashmir to allow Abdullah to travel to Chennai in order to attend the conference in the interest of freedom of speech and in the spirit of encouraging democratic participation, but had failed to get any response.

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