‘Fail to understand such arbitrary move’: Mehbooba Mufti on arrest of Hurriyat leaders

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said, ‘Under what legal grounds are their arrests justified? You can imprison a person but not his ideas.’

Earlier, the Jammu and Kashmir administration Wednesday withdrew security of 18 separatists and 155 political leaders, including Wahid Parra, a close aide of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and ex-bureaucrat Shah Faesal/ Mehbooba Mufti FILE PIC/AFP.

NEW DELHI: A day after JKLF chief Yaseen Malik was detained, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday called it an ‘arbitrary move’ and said that this will only precipitate matters in J&K. On Twitter, Mufti wrote ‘In the past 24 hours, Hurriyat leaders & workers of Jamaat organisation have been arrested. Fail to understand such an arbitrary move which will only precipitate matters in J&K.’ The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister further added ‘Under what legal grounds are their arrests justified? You can imprison a person but not his ideas.’

In the past 24 hours, Hurriyat leaders & workers of Jamaat organisation have been arrested. Fail to understand such an arbitrary move which will only precipitate matters in J&K. Under what legal grounds are their arrests justified? You can imprison a person but not his ideas.

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) February 23, 2019

The remark comes nine days after an audacious terror attack on a convoy in Pulwama district in which 40 CRPF personnel lost their lives. Earlier, the Jammu and Kashmir administration Wednesday withdrew security of 18 separatists and 155 political leaders, including Wahid Parra, a close aide of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and ex-bureaucrat Shah Faesal. Surprisingly, the names included that of pro-Pakistan separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani and JKLF chief Yaseen Malik, who had maintained that they never had any security, Shahid-ul-Islam and Nayeem Khan, who have been in jail for over a year now. A security review meeting, which was held here under the chairmanship of state chief secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, took the decision as it was felt that providing security to these separatist leaders is a "wastage" of scarce state resources which could be better utilised elsewhere. Besides Geelani, Malik, Islam and Khan, the others named in the list are Aga Syed Mosvi, Maulvi Abbas Ansari and his son Masroor, Saleem Geelani, Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, Farooq Ahmed Kichloo, Aga Syed Abul Hussain, Abdul Gani Shah and Mohd Musadiq Bhat. In addition, the security of 155 political persons and activists, who did not require the security provided to them based on their threat assessment and activities, was also withdrawn.