The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Thursday did not allow several People's Democratic Party (PDP) leaders to leave their homes for attending a party meeting in Srinagar.
“Despite being free on paper and in government submissions in the High Court and the Supreme Court, PDP leadership continues to be under illegal detention, without any official orders. I wasn't allowed to attend the PDP meeting nor were any of my colleagues,” says senior PDP leader and former Minister Naeem Akhtar.
PDP leader Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra said a year of “unfreedom and many claims later, we were told we are free now. But when we tried to attend the first party meeting post August 5, they told us we are under detention.”
He added: “The mental toll this detention has induced in our families is not only cruel but also unconstitutional and vindictive. While other political parties are allowed to continue political activities, severe restrictions are placed on us.”
Sajad Lone, Peoples Conference chairman said that the government should come clean on whether someone is detained or not. “This heralds the new struggle. Struggle to get the government to agree that a person is detained.”
The PDP leaders posted their videos on social media as they were not allowed by their security guards to move out of their homes, saying they were under detention. The government has been maintaining, however, these politicians are not in detention.
The PDP leaders’ predicament is similar to senior Congress leader Saifuddin Soz who has been repeatedly saying that he is still being held in detention by the Jammu and Kashmir administration while the government insists “he is a free man”.
A habeas corpus petition by the 82-year-old leader was dismissed by the Supreme Court on July 29 after the J&K administration said the senior Congress leader was never under detention. Soz had moved the top court saying he had been under detention in his home since August 5 2019.
However, a day after his petition was dismissed, a video emerged of Soz being prevented by security men from stepping out of his house. In fact, Soz was seen being physically prevented from talking to media persons on the other side of the fenced wall of his home.
While condemning the police action to disallow PDP leaders from moving out of their houses for a party meeting, the CPI(M) Thursday said it has once again exposed the hollow claims of the BJP government about normalcy in Kashmir.
“It is highly astonishing that the BJP government is even afraid of allowing a political party to hold a meeting. For more than one year, the BJP government has been lying about normalcy in Kashmir. If that is the case then why were senior leaders of a political party placed under house arrest and not allowed to meet?
“The fact is that the only thing the revocation of Article 370 has achieved so far is a complete abrogation of democracy in J&K and an unconscionable suppression of civil and democratic rights,” the CPIM said.
The CPI-M said the government must release all political prisoners, including PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, without any further delay.
