Pawar, Mamata, 6 Other National Leaders Ask Centre to Release J&K Political Prisoners

New Delhi: Eight senior national-level politicians – a former prime minister, two former NDA Cabinet ministers and a chief minister among them – have issued a statement to the press, demanding that the Centre stop muzzling dissent and release all political detainees in Jammu and Kashmir.

Although a joint statement, the text was released by the office of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar. He is the first signatory to the statement.

The others are Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress head Mamata Banerjee, Janata Dal Secular leader and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Communist Party of India general secretary D. Raja, Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, and former ministers of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.

“India and its constitution have always stood for ‘unity in diversity’ with everybody’s views respected, honoured and heard. However, in the government of Shri Narendra Modi, democratic dissent is being muzzled by coercive administrative action, which has threatened the basic ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as enshrined in our constitution,” the statement read.

Highlights that “democratic norms, fundamental rights and civic liberties of citizens of the Indian republic” were under growing assault, the statement notes that dissent and criticism have both been stifled and silenced by the current Modi government.

A file image of Omar and Farooq Abdullah, both of whom are detained. Photo: PTI

“Nothing exemplifies this more starkly than the continuing detention, on flimsiest of grounds, of three former Chief Ministers of Jammu & Kashmir — Dr Farooq Abdullah, Shri Omar Abdullah and Smt Mehbooba Mufti — for over seven months,” the statement goes on to say.

It also highlights how the detentions of the former chief ministers and other leaders under the Public Safety Act is legally tenuous.

“There is nothing in the past records of these three leaders to lend credence to the Modi government’s false and self-serving claim that they pose a threat to “public safety” in J&K or that they have endangered national interests with their activities. Ironically, the BJP itself has allied with all three of them, and their parties, in the past, both at the Centre (with National Conference) and in the state (with People’s Democratic Party). The very validity of the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978 can be challenged following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution as the state has now been stripped off its Special Status.”

Stressing that the prolonged detention is a violation of Mufti and the Abdullahs’ basic rights, the statement also highlights the lockdown to which Kashmir was subjected to, all while Modi and home minister Amit Shah claimed that the situation was “completely normal.”

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. Photo: PTI

The statement also took a dim view of the government’s eagerness to prove that all was normal in J&K to outsiders.

“…In a bid to show the world that the situation in J&K is “normal”, it has placed all kinds of hurdles in the attempts of representatives of India’s own political and media establishment to move freely in the state and assess the situation on the ground.”

Stressing that Kashmiris and Kashmir’s political parties have “against all odds, have repeatedly shown their allegiance to the Indian Union, by being an integral part of our democratic process,” the statement asks for the “complete and verifiable restoration of the rights and freedoms” of Kashmiri politicians. (The Wire)