Detainees shifted from Centaur Hotel

Sumayyah Qureshi

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 17

Two days after former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was shifted from a J&K Tourism Development Corporation hut in Chashma Shahi to a government house, more than 30 political leaders, mostly former Cabinet ministers, were on Sunday shifted from the luxury Centaur Hotel-turned-VVIP jail, where they remained detained for the past three months since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, to the MLA Hostel in Srinagar.

Sources said the huge rates charged by the luxury hotel was the reason for shifting the political detainees.

As per reports, the state administration has been billed over Rs3 crore for housing the political leaders at Centaur Hotel.

A government official said: “All political leaders detained at the Centaur Hotel have been shifted to the MLA Hostel.” The official, however, did not give any reason for the shifting of the political detainees.

Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Law and Order, Munir Khan, confirmed that the political leaders detained at Centaur Hotel had been shifted. “The political leaders have been shifted to the MLA Hostel because the heating arrangements were not that good at Centaur Hotel,” said the ADGP.

The move to shift the detainees from Centaur Hotel comes following the shifting of Mehbooba Mufti to a new place after her daughter, Iltija Mufti, had written to the District Magistrate, Srinagar, urging him to shift her “ailing” mother to a place, which had better heating arrangements to deal with the harsh Valley winter.

Among the prominent names detained at Centaur Hotel, situated on the banks of the Dal Lake, which had been converted into a sub-jail , were People’s Conference chairman Sajad Lone, 2010 IAS topper-turned-politician Shah Faesal, People’s Democratic Party leader Naeem Akhtar, National Conference general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and PDP general secretary Nizamuddin Bhat.

A few leaders were earlier released from Centaur Hotel, but they were asked to sign a bond to “maintain peace” in the Valley under Section 107 of the CrPC.

Over 1,000 people, including politicians, separatist leaders, activists and lawyers, were detained after the Central Government downgraded the state into two Union Territories and decided to remove its special status on August 5. Three former Chief Ministers — Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — are among the detainees. Farooq was subsequently detained under the stringent Public Safety Act.

More than 250 people were sent to jails outside Jammu and Kashmir.