Amid COVID-19 outbreak, NC MP demands release of Kashmiri detainees under PSA

Regional National Conference (NC) Member of Parliament, Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi on Monday urged the Centre to release detainees lodged under Public Safety Act (PSA) in various jails in and outside Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of COVID-19 threat.

In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the NC leader drew his attention towards the “plight of hundreds of detainees lodged under the PSA lodged in Ambedkar Nagar, Agra, Tihar and other jails outside Jammu and Kashmir.”

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“The detainees it needs to be realised, are detained without charge and trial on mere suspicion, later found to be misplaced,” he said.

Masoodi, who was a former chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, said there are numerous judicial pronouncements commanding the government to lodge the detenue in a jail near his home so that the relatives and friends visit him, and the detenue, due to lack of social interaction, is not exposed to mental trauma.

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“The lockdown and restrictions imposed on travel and traffic, to combat the Covind-19 crises, would make it impossible for the relatives to visit the detenue lodged a few hundred miles from his home,” he said while requesting the Home Minister to direct revocation of detention orders against all the detainees lodged within and outside J&K.

“…and pending such revocation request you to direct immediate shifting of all the detainees lodged outside J&K back to J&K forthwith,” he said.