Ex-J&K CM Omar Abdullah released from detention after nearly 8 months

New Delhi: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, who was detained in August last year ahead of the Centre’s move to scrap the erstwhile state’s special status, will be released. A Jammu and Kashmir administration spokesman said on Tuesday that orders to release Omar Abdullah had been issued.

Omar Abdullah, who turned 50 in jail this month, has been in detention for a little over seven months.

The government ordered his release on Tuesday, days after his father Farooq Abdullah was freed. A third former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party, is still in detention.

The National Conference leader was detained on August 4 midnight before the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and divided the state into two union territories.

Abdullah was detained in August 2019 when the Centre nullified Article 370, divided the state into two union territories and placed Kashmir valley in a state of lockdown. He was initially detained under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that empowers an executive magistrate to order a person to execute bonds “for keeping the peace”. Just before his detention was to expire in February 2020, the government invoked the Public Safety Act to hold him. This law empowers authorities to hold any person for two more years.

Omar Abdullah’s sister Sara Abdullah Pilot had approached the Supreme Court soon after, arguing that his detention was “unconstitutional”. A two-judge bench of the top court, which had asked the government in February to explain Omar Abdullah’s detention, last week cautioned the government that it would take up the petition on merits on the next date of hearing if the state did not release him.