Tehran 7 February _Indian officials have extended six-month imprisonment of four political leaders in the disputed Kashmir region under a draconian law that allows their continued captivity without charge for two years, authorities said.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club(YJC)_The latest detention order against two former chief ministers of India’s only Muslim majority state, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, as well as two regional party leaders, Ali Mohmmad Sagar and Sartaj Madni, was issued by New Delhi under the disputed Public Safety Act (PSA) in a bid to further suppress dissent after the central government stripped the region of its autonomy last August, two senior officials said Friday as cited in a Reuters report.
Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti confirmed her mother’s continued captivity under the law in a Twitter posting.
“Slapping the draconian PSA... is expected from an autocratic regime that books nine-year-olds for ‘seditious remarks’. Question is how much longer will we act as bystanders as they desecrate what this nation stands for?” Iltija wrote in the tweet.
The four leaders were originally held under a law that allowed a maximum of six months of captivity without charges, but since their detention was about to expire, Indian officials invoked the PSA to keep them under arrest, according to the officials in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir state.
“The law does not allow preventive detention beyond six months. So they had to be either released or booked under PSA,” said one government official, as quoted in the report.
“Several other regional leaders who have also completed six months under preventive detention are likely to be booked under PSA,” added the second official.
Both officials requested anonymity due to the sensitivity over security matters, according to the report, which noted that the spokesman for New Delhi’s Home Ministry did not respond to inquiries about the case.
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