Srinagar: Political tensions over the detention of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Mehraj-ud-Din Malik continued to simmer in Jammu and Kashmir as security forces on Thursday (September 11) prevented Rajya Sabha MP and senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh from addressing a press conference in the capital Srinagar.The ruling National Conference’s president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah was also stopped from meeting Singh at the circuit house, a premium government lodge in Srinagar’s Sonawar locality where the AAP leader has put up since Wednesday night along with the party’s J&K leaders and workers.After the police rebuke, the AAP leader accused the administration led by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha of using “dictatorial” measures to prevent a Rajya Sabha member from meeting a former MP, while Abdullah warned that the “extraconstitutional” step taken by Sinha could lead to “Nepal-like” situation in Jammu and Kashmir.Singh, who arrived in Jammu on Wednesday, was scheduled to stage a protest against Malik’s detention on Thursday and later address a press conference in the city. He had reportedly intimated the local police about both the events.However, when the AAP leader tried to come out of the main gate of the circuit house on Thursday, more than dozen police personnel led by a three-star officer bolted the gate from outside and later refused to open it, despite repeated pleas by Singh and other AAP leaders.The police also barred media personnel from entering the circuit house.In a video message recorded at the gate, Singh likened the curbs and Malik’s detention to the “dictatorship” of the Union territory administration. Following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir police has been under the direct charge of the lieutenant governor.“We aren’t being told why we are being stopped. Is staging a peaceful protest a crime? Is it a crime to do a press conference in a democracy? Is it a crime to raise a voice against someone’s illegal arrest in a democracy? The extent of this dictatorship is such that they aren’t bothering to tell a Rajya Sabha member why he is being stopped,” he said.As the video circulated on social media, Abdullah arrived at the circuit house to meet the AAP leader. However, the policemen deployed at the gate refused to open it. On hearing the National Conference president arguing with the police, Singh clambered up the gate to make his face visible.“I had come only to say my salaam but they are not allowing me to come in,” Abdullah told Singh after seeing him on the other side of the gate.Singh replied: “They aren’t allowing meetings. They aren’t allowing me to leave. Whatever they are able to do [to stop me], they are doing it”.Interestingly, the AAP had welcomed the decision by the Union government led by the BJP to read down Article 370 and bifurcate the erstwhile state into two Union territories.“This is our situation,” Abdullah said. “A people’s government is in place [in Jammu and Kashmir] but the master is the lieutenant governor. He is the master of these policemen. The whole nation should know that a citizen was stopped from exercising his constitutional right to free speech.”“Why aren’t you allowing us to meet?” Singh continued, turning to the policemen without evoking any response. “What is our crime? He [Abdullah] has been a member of parliament and former chief minister. I am a member of parliament. Why aren’t you allowing us to meet? What is wrong in our meeting?”Abdullah said that peaceful protests were an essential part of democracy and a constitutional right of the citizens, while accusing the lieutenant governor of “misusing” his powers.“We are not under autocratic rule. We have a constitution and the lieutenant governor is also bound by law to protect it. He should be afraid of what is happening in Nepal. Before such a fire lights up in our nation, I urge him to stop taking extraconstitutional measures. We were not going to pelt stones. We are only going to have a meeting,” he said.Speaking with reporters in Srinagar, chief minister Omar Abdullah said that the Union government has been claiming that the situation is normal in Jammu and Kashmir, “but the fact is that restrictions have become a norm here”.The chief minister said that if anyone had problems with Malik’s behaviour, they should have raised them with the Jammu and Kashmir assembly speaker and the assembly secretariat.A day before his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA), Malik, who is MLA for Doda and president of the AAP’s Jammu and Kashmir unit, had resorted to unsavoury remarks against Doda deputy commissioner Harvinder Singh.“Booking an MLA under the PSA was a wrong decision. Now you have taken it a level up by illegally detaining a Rajya Sabha member. Under what law has he been detained? Have you served him any detention order? This is not good for democracy in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.The AAP leader’s detention was also condemned by opposition parties Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Shiv Sena (UBT).In a post on X, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said that arresting a public representative without charges does not represent the law in action but “a repressive strike on democracy”.“Sanjay Singh is an MP, a senior leader! Putting him under house arrest in Jammu Kashmir means crossing all limits of dictatorship! Everything is not okay in Jammu Kashmir! Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was also put under house arrest in Kashmir, have the BJP people forgotten? Jai Hind!” said Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, referring to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader.