The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday, 3 June, revoked the Public Safety Act (PSA) that mainstream politicians, including Shah Faesal, Sartaj Madni and Peer Mansoor, were charged under.
Shah Faesal, former civil servant and chief of Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM), has been booked under PSA in February 2020. He has been under detention after the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir's special status in August 2019.
The PSA has two sections – ‘public order’ and ‘threat to the security of the state’. The former allows detention without trial for six months and the latter for two years.
Faesal was stopped from taking a flight to Istanbul at the Delhi airport during the intervening night of 13 and 14 August last year and flown back to Srinagar, where he was detained.
Meanwhile, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Sartaj Madni and Peer Mansoor, who were booked under PSA also had the charges withdrawn.
Ahead of the 5 August move, most of the Jammu and Kashmir mainstream politicians, including Srinagar MP and former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah, and PDP president and former CM Mehbooba Mufti were detained. While Farooq and Omar Abdullah have been released, Mufti continues to be under house arrest.
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