By Auqib Javeed, TwoCircles.net
Srinagar: – The recent amendment of the Public Safety Act (PSA)- which allows the state to detain any person without trial under a period of six months, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has evoked strong resentment from both the mainstream and separatist leadership including the general masses.
The State Administrative Council (SAC) headed by Governor NN Vohra approved the deletion of Section 10 of the PSA that pertained to the shifting of any detainee outside J&K.
On July 31, Vohra through a notification, a copy of which is with Twocircles.net, amended the Act by removing a legal provision that bars sending prisoners detained under the PSA to detention centres outside the state.
The notification reads that, “amendment has been made in section 10 Act VI of 1978 and in Section 10 of Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978; the provision thereto shall be omitted”. Section 10 of the PSA reads, “Any person in respect of whom a detention order has been made under Section 8 shall be liable to detained at such place” which the government may decide “provided the detainees who are permanent residents of the state” are not lodged in jails outside the state.
The amendment is seen as a tough measure to regulate the protests in Kashmir. The move, which is being termed as a measure that would put prisoners through “harsh conditions”, has drawn censure in the state. Earlier, PSA provided that the detainees who were permanent residents of J&K could not be lodged in jails outside the state.
Given the deadly assaults on Kashmiri detainees outside the state, the amendment has caused anxiety in the valley especially among the families whose kin have been booked under the notorious law.
Over the years, under this law, thousands of people, mostly political activists, have been taken into preventive custody and kept in jails without trial for many years.
Tariq Ahmad Dar, who was acquitted of all charges in 2005 Delhi serial bomb blasts case on Feb 24, 2017, while talking to TwoCircles.net says under the said proposal, if victims or accused are lodged in outside state prisons, it would be great injustice with them and their families.
“It will be very difficult for family members to meet their kin and for the detainee as well,” said Tariq who spend 12 years in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
“My family suffered a lot particularly my wife who was pregnant at the time of my arrest, I saw my daughter for the first time last year,” Tariq added.
He is of the view that current amendment will be ‘disastrous’ for those whose family members would be detained under this Act.
Mohammad Hussain Fazili, another ex-detainee who was also acquitted after 12 years for his alleged involvement in the same case (Delhi serial blasts in 2005) echoes the same view. He says, “at the end family members suffer, and it’s very tough for a Kashmiri to fight a case in any other state of India, it would be better if the government could detain the accused in their home state.”
Noted lawyer and founder of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) Parvez Imroze believes that the Act was amended to “break the will of people”.
“The act is itself a draconian law and now the government has made it harsher by amending it so that any protesting student or a Youth can be detained and lodged in any part of India without any trial,” he said.
“The basic purpose of the amendment is that they (Government) want the accused to be lodged in a place where it would be difficult for him to communicate with his family members and lawyer,” Imroze added.
Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq termed the amendment to the PSA as “anti-human” and against the basic principles of humanity.
He said scores of Kashmiri political prisoners have already been shifted to jails outside the state and the new law is aimed at shifting the remaining prisoners which are against the Supreme Court of India ruling that says prisoners facing trial be lodged in jails closer to their homes.
National Conference leader Ali Muhammad Sagar said that this decision would send imprisoned under trials away from their families and would further add to the sense of isolation that the people felt.
“This is an unfortunate and unacceptable decision that National Conference opposes unequivocally and unambiguously. We appeal to the Honourable Governor to reconsider this decision of the SAC”, he said.
Sagar said the SAC State Administrative Council should repeal the decision and restore the provision in the Act at the earliest possible instance.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Spokesperson Rafi Ahmed Mir while talking to Twocircles.net said that it is a not a pro-people move and the decision taken in State Administrative Council is against the policy of his party.
“Whosoever is being detained under PSA should be lodged in State Jails so that their family members could meet them easily,” Mir said adding asked the Governor Administration to reconsider his decision.
J&K High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), Srinagar, described the amendment as ‘Politically motivated’ and termed it as “an act to terrorise, torture and humiliate the freedom loving people of Kashmir by threatening them to get them lodged in jails outside the state,”
The J&K Public Safety Ordinance 2011 maintained that no resident of J&K detained under the PSA could be shifted to a jail outside the State.
Amnesty International in 2011 has described the PSA as a “lawless law.”
In its report ‘A Lawless Law: Detentions under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act’, the organisation documents how ‘the PSA is used to secure the long-term detention of individuals against whom there is insufficient evidence for a trial’.