Omar continues to pose threat to public order, apex court told

The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Monday told the Supreme Court that National Conference leader Omar Abdullah has been detained under the Public Safety Act due to his “past conduct” as well as the fact that he continued to pose “an imminent threat to public order”.

Maintaining that he was “a very vocal critic” of abrogating Article 370, the J&K administration claimed that his acts squarely fell within the realm of public order as it was “calculated to disturb public peace and tranquillity”.

“The detenu has been a very vocal critic of any possible abrogation of Article 370 prior to its abrogation on August 5, 2019. Considering the very peculiar the geo-political position of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and its geographical proximity with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the concept of ‘public order’ needs to be examined contextually,” it said in an affidavit.

The Srinagar district magistrate filed his response to a habeas corpus petition filed by Sara Abdullah Pilot, who claimed the detention of her brother Omar under the provision of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) was illegal. On Monday, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee decided to consider Sara’s plea on Thursday, rejecting a plea by the J-K administration to take it up after Holi break, saying the issue was related to liberty of the individual.

During the brief submission, Attorney General K K Venugopal questioned the maintainability of the plea, saying the petitioner did not disclose as to why she did not approach the high court for the purpose, even though several of such petitions were filed and considered over there.