Srinagar: Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) member and daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Iltija Mufti has filed a fresh habeas corpus petition for her mother in the Supreme Court. Iltija has challenged the PSA order and also the extension of her detention. Mehbooba has been under detention since August 5, 2020, and was slapped with Public Safety Act (PSA) earlier this year.
Speaking to ETV Bharat on the phone, Iltija said, "My mother’s detention is illegal. She has very little access to the outside world and even her landline phone has been illegally and unreasonably disconnected. She has been in detention for over a year without recourse to trial."
"The petition was filed last week. I want to bring to the apex court's notice through this fresh writ petition that despite its order in February, Jammu and Kashmir administration is yet to file a reply. This shows the respect they have for the courts and the SC," she said.
She also expressed anguish over the treatment Mehbooba Mufti has received where she has been deliberately kept out of bounds for the members of PDP of which she is the president.
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“My mother is being treated unfairly. She has been deliberately kept out of bounds for party people and not been allowed to attend to her duties as J&K PDP president,” Iltija added.
Iltija claimed that the only reason cited for continued detention, now under PSA, is that her mother had declined to sign a bond.
"My mother is being repeatedly asked to sign a bond, which says: “In case of release from detention, she will not make any comment(s) or issue statement(s) or make a public speech(s) hold or participate in public assemblies related to the recent events in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, at the present time, since it has the potential of endangering the peace and tranquillity and law and order in the State or any part thereof.”
Mehbooba was taken into preventive custody on the intervening night of August 4-5, 2019, the day the government revoked Article 370. Six months later, she was booked under the PSA. According to the PSA dossier, Mehbooba was 'daddy's girl' and believed in 'cheap' politics.
Nearly all of Kashmir’s mainstream political leaders were detained in August 2019, hours before the central government abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, which accorded special status to the region, and bifurcated the state into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one.
Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, the two former chief ministers, were released on March 13 and March 24, respectively.
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