Former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference’s (NC) Omar Abdullah and President of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti had been slapped with the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) by the Jammu and Kashmir administration because of Abdullah’s ability to “convince his electorate to vote in huge numbers” and Mufti for being “Daddy’s girl” and her party’s flag being of green colour.

For Omar Abdullah the dossier prepared by the police said, “the capacity of the subject to influence people for any cause can be gauged from the fact that he was able to convince his electorate to come out and vote in huge numbers even during the peak of militancy and poll boycotts.”

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While the dossier on Mufti says, “(The) subject is recognised as hot-headed and scheming person, known for dangerous and insidious machinations…. She has been promoting separatism as corroborated by several confidential reports filed by (intelligence) agencies… The subject is referred, for her dangerous and insidious machinations and usurping profile and nature, by the masses as ‘Daddy’s girl’ and ‘Kota Rani’, based on the profile of a medieval queen of Kashmir, who rose to power by virtue of undertaking intrigues ranging from poisoning of her opponents to ponyardings (sic).”

Mufti’s daughter,  Iltija Mufti who handles her mother’s Twitter account,in a series of tweets gave a point -by-point rebuttal on the government’s dossier.

Iltija tweeted, “Believe it or not but PSA dossier drafted on instructions of MHA on Ms Mufti, a former J&K CM states the following – ‘The subject is referred for her dangerous & insidious machinations & usurping profile & nature as ‘Daddy’s girl’.”

Believe it or not but PSA dossier drafted on instructions of MHA on Ms Mufti ,a former J&K CM states the following-
‘The subject is referred for her dangerous & insidious machinations & usurping profile & nature as ‘Daddy’s girl’

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) February 9, 2020

Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti who were under preventive detention for the past six month, were on Thursday night booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) without charges, barely hours before their arrest was to come to an end.

Under PSA a person can be kept under detention without trial for up to two year. While senior Abdullah was slapped with the stringent PSA on September 17 last year which was reviewed by authorities on December 15, 2019 and it was agreed that he would continue to remain in detention for another 90 days.

Several political leaders were picked up from their residences on August 5 last year, the day the Centre had withdrawn the special status given to J-K under Article 370 of the Constitution and divided the state into two Union Territories — Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir.

The two Union Territories came into existence on October 31 last year.

A total of 35 mainstream politicians were moved from the Centaur Hotel on the banks of the Dal Lake to the MLA Hostel on November 18 as Srinagar reeled under harsh winter and the hotel lacked proper heating arrangement.

Meanwhile the three former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti — continue to remain under detention and are now facing PSA.

The PSA, a law which was enacted by Omar Abdullah’s grandfather Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah in 1978 initially to check timber smuggling. The law  came handy for police force to book separatists and militant sympathisers, has two sections — ‘public order’ and ‘threat to security of the state’. The former allows detention without trial for six months and the latter for two years.