[Some of the detentions are being carried out under provisions in India’s criminal procedure code that allow preventive arrests to maintain peace. Others, however, are taking place under the auspices of the Public Safety Act, a law that critics describe as draconian. Authorities have used the statute to detain young people they accuse of engaging in stone-throwing protests or of joining militant groups that have waged a long-running anti-India insurgency.]
By Joanna Slater and Niha Masih
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Farooq
Abdullah, a politician in Indian-controlled Kashmir, addresses supporters
at
a campaign rally in Srinagar on April 8. (Mukhtar Khan/AP)
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NEW
DELHI — Indian authorities
have charged Farooq Abdullah, the most senior mainstream politician in Kashmir
and a serving member of the Indian Parliament, under a controversial law that
allows detentions of up to two years without trial.
The detention of Abdullah, 81, is part of
India’s ongoing clampdown in Kashmir that began on Aug. 5 after the government
announced it would strip the region of its autonomy and statehood.
India has arrested politicians, lawyers,
activists, party workers, young men and some minors in the crackdown,
describing them as threats to public order or likely to participate in protests
that could turn deadly.
Abdullah was charged Sunday night under the
Public Safety Act, said Munir Khan, a senior police official in Kashmir. He
declined to describe the nature of the accusations. The law permits bureaucrats
to order long detentions that are reviewed by advisory boards, not sitting
judges.
More than 3,000 people have been detained in
Kashmir since Aug. 5, including the region’s most prominent mainstream
political leaders. Many of the politicians are being held at a hotel turned
detention center on the shores of Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital.
Such politicians are neither separatists nor
militants but represent the pro-India camp in Kashmiri politics: They have
taken the position that Kashmir’s future rests within India, although with a
degree of autonomy to be determined through dialogue.
Abdullah served as the chief minister of the
state of Jammu and Kashmir three times and is a member of the upper house of
India’s Parliament. Two other former state chief ministers, Omar Abdullah,
Farooq Abdullah’s son, and Mehbooba Mufti, were also detained.
Some of the detentions are being carried out
under provisions in India’s criminal procedure code that allow preventive
arrests to maintain peace. Others, however, are taking place under the auspices
of the Public Safety Act, a law that critics describe as draconian. Authorities
have used the statute to detain young people they accuse of engaging in
stone-throwing protests or of joining militant groups that have waged a
long-running anti-India insurgency.
Abdullah, a longtime politician, met with
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi just days before the move to
scrap Kashmir’s autonomy.
He was placed under a form of house arrest
soon after Aug. 5. His detention was later challenged in India’s Supreme Court
by a fellow member of Parliament. Experts said that charging Abdullah under the
stringent Public Safety Act is probably a way to justify his continued
detention.
Families of detained politicians and party
workers say they fear that challenging their relatives’ arrests will only land
them in further legal jeopardy, for instance in the form of fresh charges under
the Public Safety Act.
Shahnawaz Ahmad Mir, who was a youth leader
for the People’s Democratic Party, a mainstream party in Kashmir, was arrested
at his home in the early hours of Aug. 5. His family said that he had started
political activity earlier this year and that his grandfather had been killed
by anti-India militants. Mir has been held at the main jail in Srinagar under a
form of preventive detention.
His wife, Naziya Lone, said that during a
recent brief visit, Mir looked pale and emaciated.
“It is depressing that he has been treated
like a hardened criminal,” she said. Mir’s uncle, Ghulam Hassan Mir, said that
the way his nephew and other pro-India politicians have been treated has
“broken the trust between India and Kashmiris.”
Ishfaq Naseem in Srinagar contributed to this
report.
Read more
Locked up and shut down: How India has silenced opposition to its crackdown in Kashmir
In teenager’s death, a battle over the truth in Kashmir
Modi’s radical move on Kashmir takes India into uncharted territory
In teenager’s death, a battle over the truth in Kashmir
Modi’s radical move on Kashmir takes India into uncharted territory
