Jammu and Kashmir admin stopped leaders under 'illegal' house detention from attending party meet, alleges PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the Jammu and Kashmir administration had stopped senior party leaders, who are under home detention, from attending the party’s first official meeting since Article 370 was abrogated last year, reports said. The party members sought to attend the meeting, scheduled at the Srinagar office, but the police didn’t allow them to move out. The police cited orders preventing them from leaving their houses, The Indian Express reported. “PDP general secretary Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura had convened a meeting of PDP leaders today but the authorities did not allow the leaders who are still under illegal detention to leave their homes,” PDP spokesman Suhail Bukhari said. He said this has exposed the “hollow claims” that political leaders were free people in the Union Territory. “The lies have been exposed. This proves that they have lied before institutions like the Supreme Court on India,” he added. The party had written to various government authorities like the Kashmir Divisional Commissioner, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir, IGP Security, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, SSP Srinagar and SSP security, informing them about the meeting, The Indian Express report added. However, party leaders were quoted as saying that there was no response to the letter. Meanwhile, CPM leader MY Tarigami condemned the police action to disallow PDP leaders from moving out of their houses for the party meeting. It has once again exposed the hollow claims of the BJP government about normalcy in Kashmir, he said. “It is highly astonishing that the BJP government is even afraid of allowing a political party to hold a meeting. For more than one year, the BJP government has been lying about normalcy in Kashmir. If that is the case (that there is normalcy), then why were senior leaders of a political party placed under house arrest and not allowed to meet?” he asked. “The fact is that the only thing the revocation of Article 370 has achieved so far is a complete abrogation of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir and an unconscionable suppression of civil and democratic rights,” he added. Tarigami said the government must release all party leaders, including PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, without any further delay.