After seven months of incarceration, former J&K chief minister and PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti, was on Tuesday, shifted to her residence in Srinagar which has been declared a sub-jail.
"In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (b) of section 2 of the Prisoners Act, 1990, the government hereby declares Fairview, Gupkar Road, Srinagar as "Subsidiary Jail"," an order issued by Principal Secretary to Government, Shaleen Kabra, reads.
"@MehboobaMufti must be set free. Shifting her home while continuing to keep her detained is a cop-out," Omar Abdullah tweeted.
Mehbooba was one of the 50 plus politicians including former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah, and his son Omar Abdullah who were under preventive detention, after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
She was initially kept under preventive detention at Chashme Shahi but later shifted to a government building at MA Road in Srinagar. She was booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) in February along with Omar and several other leaders of the NC and the PDP like Al Muhammad Sagar and Sartaj Madni.
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The government revoked PSA on Farooq and Omar PSA on March 12 and March 24 respectively, days before their three-month PSA for the second time, was coming to an end.
Mehbooba will stay at her official residence-- Fairview-at Gupkar Road in Srinagar a kilometre away from the residences of Farooq and Omar. “We are relieved that she is being shifted to home,” said Iltija Mufti, Mehbooba’s daughter.
Mehbooba was chief minister of the PDP-BJP coalition in Jammu and Kashmir after her father Mufti Muhammad Sayyed’s death on January 7, 2015.
She, however, couldn’t get along with the BJP due to ideological differences and tried to defend her stand on Kashmir.
She had also contended with a lot of public anger against her dealing of the 2016 uprising triggered by the killing of popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
She is a single mother and has two daughters-- Iltija and Irtiqa.
Her rise in politics began after her father parted ways with the Congress and founded the PDP. She campaigned against the abuse of rights by security forces across Kashmir that won her party 17 seats in 2002 election.
