New Delhi: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, along with three senior leaders, who have all been in preventive detention since August last year, were on Thursday booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA), officials in Srinagar reportedly told PTI.
Their six-month preventive custody was ending on Thursday.
The three are senior National Conference leader and former minister Ali Mohammed Sagar, former NC legislator Bashir Ahmed Veeri, and Sartaj Madani, the maternal uncle of PDP chief and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.
A recent report by J&K Coalition of Civil Society (J&KCCS) and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons’ (APDP) said 662 persons were booked under the PSA in 2019.
Also read: How the Public Safety Act Continues to Haunt Kashmir
Of the total number of detentions, 412 were made after August 5 when the Centre scrapped key portions of Article 370 and followed with a massive clampdown and mass arrests to quell any protests, Mudasir Ahmad notes in his report for The Wire.
The PSA was one of the few controversial state laws which were retained by the Centre under the J&K Re-Organisation Act that bifurcated J&K into two Union territories.
Senior advocate at J&K high court, Syeed Tassadque Hussain has filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the continuation of the PSA.
(With PTI inputs)