Srinagar: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, besides two political stalwarts from NC and its arch-rival PDP were booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) by the administration on Thursday. The PSA is a preventive detention law that allows detention of a person for up to two years without a trial.
A magistrate accompanied by police served the order to Mufti at the bungalow where she has been detained, the officials said.
Abdullah was also booked under the PSA, they said.
National Conference general secretary and former minister Ali Mohammed Sagar, who wields a support base in downtown city, was served with a PSA notice public order by the authorities.
Similarly, senior PDP leader Sartaj Madani was booked under the PSA. Madani is the maternal uncle of former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
Both Sagar and Madani were detained in the aftermath of August 5 crackdown by the Centre on politicians following abrogation of special status of the erstwhile state, besides its bifurcation into two union territories.
Their six-month preventive custody was ending on Thursday.
Earlier, the officials had said that former NC legislator Bashir Ahmed Veeri was also booked under the PSA but later it turned out that he had been released.
Earlier in the day, replying to debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that Mehbooba Mufti had said on August 5 that India had betrayed Kashmir.
"She said we made the wrong decision in 1947... do the people here support these statements? Omar Abdullah said abrogation of Article 370 will bring such an earthquake that Kashmir will separate from the country. Farooq Abdullah said the abrogation will open the way for Kashmir's independence... Can anyone agree with such language, Modi asked.
Modi asserted that the government won't allow peace to be disturbed anywhere in the country, be it Kashmir or the northeast.
