New Delhi: The latest politician to be booked under the draconian Public Safety Act in Jammu and Kashmir is former IAS officer and head of Jammu & Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) party Shah Faesal.
Faesal, who has has been in preventive custody under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) since August 14 last year, joins Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Sartaj Madani, Hilal Lone and Nayeem Akhtar in being booked under the PSA. Barring Faesal, the others were booked last week just as their six-month preventive custody was coming to an end.
The PSA is 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.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah’s sister, Sara Abdullah Pilot, has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against his detention under the Public Safety Act.
Also read: Omar Abdullah’s Sister Files Petition in Supreme Court Against His Detention Under PSA
“It is rare that those who have served the nation as members of parliament, chief minister of a State, minister in the Union, and have always stood by the national aspirations of India, are now perceived as a threat to the State,” Pilot’s petition reads.
Mehbooba is also reportedly going to the move the Supreme Court against her detention under the PSA.
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.
Days before Pilot approached the Supreme Court, the Jammu and Kashmir high court had suggested that it would not be providing relief in the 300-odd challenges to PSA detentions filed before it. The court said that PSA detentions are “based on suspicion or anticipation and not on proof” and that “subjective satisfaction” of the detaining authority to detain a person or not “is not open to objective assessment by a court”.