Srinagar: The detention of former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) was on Friday extended by three months by Home Department.
An order issued by the home department reads, ” In exercise of powers conferred by section 8 (1) (a) (i) read with clause (a) of sub section (1) of section 18 of the J&K PSA 1978, the government hereby directs that the period of the detention of MS Mufti D/o Late Mufti Mind Sayed R/o Bijbrhara A P Nowgam, Srinagar be extended for a further period of three months and she may be lodged in Subsidiary Jail Fairview Gupkar Road, Srinagar.”
Mehbooba Mufti is the only mainstream political leader who continues to be under detention, after the special status of J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution was revoked and the State was downgraded to a Union Territory almost a year ago.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief and a former ally of the BJP has been detained at her residence in Srinagar.
While Ms. Mufti is at present lodged at her official residence ‘Fair View’, which has been converted into a subsidiary jail.
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Ms. Mufti was initially detained on August 5 last year when the Centre abrogated special status of the erstwhile State and bifurcated it into two union territories — Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Later, her six-month preventive custody was extended by invoking PSA on February 5 this year along with her political rival and former chief minister Omar Abdullah.
Mufti was shifted to her home on April 7, a move which was seen as a partial relief to her.
Earlier, Ms. Mufti was lodged a government guesthouse in Chashma Shahi and a bunglow on Maulana Azad Road near Lal Chowk. Mufti heads the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which was in power in Jammu and Kashmir in alliance with the BJP till June 2018.
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