SRINAGAR: Amid the ongoing crackdown on separatists by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday quashed the detention order under stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) of hardline separatist leader and close aide of Syed Ali Geelani, Masarat Alam.
A single bench of J&K High Court headed by Justice Alok Aradhe quashed Alam’s PSA detention, which was passed on May 8 this year.
It was the 35th detention order under PSA against Alam quashed by the court.
Alam is present lodged at Kot Balwal jail, Jammu.
The state government have invoked 35 detention orders under PSA against Alam in over two decades.
Alam’s counsel Mian Abdul Qayoom while pleading the court in High Court had said that the grounds of his detention were based on false allegations as it does not mention names of anti-national elements whom he had allegedly met. “It has also not mentioned date and time when Alam had met them”.
According to the detention order, Alam had influenced some inmates of prison to take part in anti-national activities.
The PSA provides for arresting and imprisoning a person without trial for at least six months on mere suspicion that he/she may be acting “in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of public order”.
The Act was first introduced in J&K in 1978 to prevent timber smuggling but after the eruption of militancy in the State, J&K government regularly invoked this act to counter the separatist movement and militancy.
Alam, who is close aide of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, is architect of 2010 summer agitation in Kashmir during which over 120 people, mostly youth, were killed in security forces firing to quell protests.
He was arrested in October 2010 and booked under PSA for spearheading the 2010 agitation.
Alam was released after 53-months detention on March 7, 2015. His release, which came immediately after PDP-BJP government took over reigns of the State, created furore across the country.
40 days after his release, he was again arrested for chanting pro-Pakistan and pro-Lashkar-e-Toiba slogans and waving Pakistani flags during a rally organized in Srinagar on April 15, 2015 to welcome Geelani’s arrival from Delhi.
It now remains to be seen whether Alam would be booked under another PSA, which will be 36th against him.
The PSA has been termed as “Lawless law” by Amnesty International.