BeyondHeadlines News Desk
Marred by day-to-day police abuse, Jammu and Kashmir inhabitants have strongly raised their voice appealing Chief Minister Omer Abdullah to immediately check the abuse of Public Safety Act (PSA) and take necessary measures to revoke PSA and any other such laws which provide scope for human rights violation in the state.
Here is the full text of the letter:
Dear Chief Minister Abdullah,
The people of Jammu and Kashmir call on you to take immediate steps to stop police abuse by addressing the persistent practice of administrative detentions in Jammu & Kashmir under the Public Safety Act (PSA). Under the PSA people are held without charge or trial, for months and sometimes years. This has not changed in essence despite the amendments in 2012.
This situation cannot continue; the PSA directly allows arbitrary detention, and indirectly facilitates torture, ill-treatment and other human rights violations at the hands of police authorities, in breach of India’s human rights obligations. One of the ways to help end these violations is to repeal the PSA once and for all, and stop new legislation that would facilitate further human rights violations by the police.
Until that is done, we stand together with human rights supporters and activists around the world urging you to pick up your pen and issue an ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER directing that:
- Authorities must stop the practice of ‘revolving door detentions’, and not use the PSA to repeatedly detain the same individual on similar grounds;
- PSA detention records maintained by the J&K Ministry of Home Affairs must be publicly accessible, especially to spouses and close family members and legal representatives assigned and agreed by detained persons.
Beyond this, we call on you to use your powers to ensure that no one is detained under the PSA until it is repealed.
Sincerely,
The people of Jammu and Kashmir
