New Delhi: The opposition Congress and CPI(M) launched Tuesday a scathing attack on the Centre over the detention of Farooq Abdullah under the Public Safety Act (PSA), with Rahul Gandhi stating that nationalist leaders like the National Conference (NC) chief were being removed to create a political vacuum in Jammu and Kashmir and use the Valley to polarise the rest of India.
Rahul Gandhi also demanded that the government immediately release all nationalist leaders and ‘stop creating a space for terrorists’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
Criticising the detention of Farooq Abdullah and other leaders, CPI(M) leader from Kashmir Mohd Yousuf Tarigami said that ‘people across the border are clapping’ that the government has done what they could not.
“We, Abdullah and others are not terrorists… what is happening in Kashmir is not in the interest of the country,” Mohd Yousuf Tarigami said while addressing a press conference here with CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury
Tarigami, who was under house arrest since August 5, was brought to the AIIMS here for treatment on the direction of the Supreme Court after it allowed Yechury to meet him in Srinagar and submit a report on his health condition. Yechury also hit out at the government over Abdullah’s detention and said that the situation is ‘very serious’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
Congress leader Kapil Sibal questioned whether the step to invoke PSA against Farooq Abdullah after 43 days was prompted by MDMK chief Vaiko’s plea in the Supreme Court seeking a directive that the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister be produced before it. “If no danger to public safety then, why now? Because Vaiko filed petition?” Sibal tweeted.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said no one in the Valley was more devoted to the idea of a united India than Abdullah. “I have asked my family to tweet on my behalf the following: I condemn the detention of Shri Farooq Abdullah under PSA. There is no one in Kashmir more devoted to the idea of a united India of which J&K is an integral part than Shri Farooq Abdullah,” Chidambaram, who is lodged in Tihar Jail here on corruption charges, said on Twitter.
Reacting to a news report on Abdullah’s arrest, Chidambaram’s son and Congress MP Karti Chidambaram tweeted: ‘Nazi Nazi Nazi’.
In a statement issued from NC headquarters, over 58 prominent leaders including some former legislators and ministers of Jammu region, said the detention of the ‘veteran visionary leader speaks of the desperation of the government’.
PTI