PSA order: Farooq’s acts prior to abrogation led to detention

Ishfaq Tantry
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, September 18

The dossier, which became the grounds for booking three-time J&K Chief Minister and sitting Member of Parliament Dr Farooq Abdullah under the Public Safety Act, makes it clear that ‘activities attributed to him prior to the dilution of the Article 370’ of the Constitution of India ‘left no option open’ for the authorities concerned ‘but to resort to preventive detention.’

As per the documents accessed by The Tribune, the orders to detain Farooq Abdullah under the Public Safety Act were issued by the District Magistrate, Srinagar, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, on September 14, 2019.

The supporting material corroborating the grounds of detention as mentioned in the PSA dossier is based on 34 media reports and documents. It was this material based on which the detaining authority, that is the District Magistrate, Srinagar, arrived on his “subjective satisfaction” that the “situation may spiral out of control, if on the ground the intentions” of the subject, that is Farooq Abdullah, “were to materialise.”

The PSA order pronounced by the Srinagar District Magistrate was arrived “based on the material facts substantiated by various media reports as asserted in the dossier”. The order further states that the invocation of the Public Safety Act against Farooq Abdullah was necessitated by compelling circumstances and in view of the “current circumstances became absolutely unavoidable”.

Sources revealed that the PSA dossier and the order mentioning the grounds of the detention were served upon Farooq Abdullah at his Gupkar residence by the officials concerned as was necessitated under the provisions of the J&K Public Safety Act.

“The activities attributed to the subject just prior to dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution of India left no option open to the authorities but to resort to preventive detention law,” the order states.

“The credible apprehensions which came to be entertained in view of the clear-cut intentions demonstrated by him can be described anything except peaceful. The material which came into public domain created alarm as to what the reaction among cadres of his party may be,” the documents related to PSA order of Farooq accessed by The Tribune state, adding that the maintenance of public order is of paramount consideration and anything which may have even remotely suggests of going to disturb it, cannot be afforded to be left unaddressed.