Senior leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were on Thursday not allowed to leave their homes to attend the party’s first meeting at its headquarters in Srinagar since August 5 last year.
The meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m.
“I was stopped by policemen manning my house from coming out of my residence. The government tells the Supreme Court and the world community that political leaders are free but the reality is completely opposite. This is denial of the basic democratic right to peaceful assembly within the confines of our office. House detention has become our routine,” party leader and former Minister Nayeem Akhtar told The Hindu.
PDP general secretary Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura had called the party meeting “to discuss the present situation in J&K and chalk out the future strategy”. He had sought permission from the Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, and Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, for the meeting.
“If there is a detention order against us, please show it. Why are we not being allowed?” Mr. Lone, who was stopped at the gate of his residence, said.
COVID-19 SOPs
Sources said the Srinagar administration, in reply to the party's application, asked it to refer to COVID-19 standard operating procedures before organising any meeting.
No meeting of the PDP, whose president Mehbooba Mufti remains in detention, has been allowed by the administration in the last 13 months. However, the National Conference (NC) was recently allowed to hold meetings in Srinagar after the intervention of the High Court.
Only the J&K Apni Party and the BJP have been holding meetings without any hindrance.
Condemnation
Ms. Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter, Iltija Mufti, said, “Shameful that the J&K administration, along with police, physically prevented PDP leaders from leaving their homes. They shamelessly lie to courts that these people are free to move and then have the audacity to detain them illegally at home”.
The NC, the Peoples Conference (PC), the CPI(M) and the J&K Apni Party condemned the action.
NC spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said, “Such measure was oppressive and reminded of the colonial era tactics of muzzling political voices in J&K”.
PC chief Sajad Lone said the government should come clean on whether someone was detained or not. “This heralds a new struggle. A struggle to get the government to agree that a person is detained”, he added.
CPI(M) leader M.Y. Tarigami said it was “highly astonishing that the BJP government is even afraid of allowing a political party to hold a meeting”. For more than one year, the BJP government had been lying about normalcy in Kashmir. Why were senior leaders of a political party placed under house arrest?”, he added.
