Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference State Secretary (Organisation) Sheikh Mohammad Imran on Tuesday strongly condemned former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s recent court appearance, calling it a staged drama before the very judiciary her administration once subjugated.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel
In a statement issued, Imran said that on seeing Mehbooba Mufti in court, he was struck by the irony of her sudden faith in the same system she had once undermined. “How long will we keep lying to this nation? How long will this theatre continue?” he asked, describing her court visit as “a performance before the same judiciary, the same system and the same walls — only the judge’s name changed.”
According to Imran, Justice Muzaffar Attar Sahib may no longer sit in that chair but “the institution and its wounds remain the same.”
He maintained that Mehbooba Mufti had no moral ground to seek mercy from institutions her government had rendered subordinate to bureaucratic control. Mufti should either tell the nation the truth, apologise to it or hide her face. Enough is enough. This nation has already endured the tyranny that leaders like her institutionalised,” he remarked.
He recalled that Justice Muzaffar Attar was part of the same court and a member of the PSA Board who was removed only because he had quashed thousands of PSA cases, saving countless Kashmiris from unjust detentions.
“My question to Mehbooba Mufti is simple,” the statement reads. “The same court where you went to stage your drama and pose for photographs yesterday — what will you tell the mothers whose sons are still in jails? This is not politics, this is pain. You talk of Budgam while my brothers and elders cannot even afford lawyers.”
Imran said perhaps no one questioned Mehbooba Mufti earlier because power in J&K has always rotated between two parties, NC and PDP.
Recalling a painful chapter, he said PC President Sajad Gani Lone had once told him how detainees suffered in jails. Imran recalled that from Geelani Sahib to Shabir Shah Sahib, Yasin Malik Sahib, Nayeem Khan Sahib, Shahid-ul-Islam Sahib, Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat Sahib and Shaheed Abdul Ghani Lone Sahib all had been subjected to beatings and humiliation during detention.
He narrated how, when Shaheed Abdul Ghani Lone Sahib was flown out under the PSA, he had refused to wear handcuffs, insisting that he was a minister and an MLA and that preventive detention could not be treated as a criminal arrest. Yet, according to Imran, an order had come from the government to either handcuff him or beat him. “He was beaten with a rifle butt, chained with hundreds of others, stripped and humiliated,” Imran said.
He added that PDP and NC were the creators and enforcers of the PSA and yet today they sought to play the role of judge before the same court. “You gave PSA powers to Deputy Commissioners and now you cry before them,” he remarked.
Imran pointed out that in 2016, Mehbooba Mufti’s government had dismissed sixteen employees and that the same precedent continued today. He urged her not to turn Budgam into a political stage. “If your plan is to sprinkle salt on the wounds of the people just to revive your politics, then either apologise to the nation or hide in shame,” he said.
He further recalled that in 2017, the PDP government brought the J&K Public Property (Prevention of Damage) Amendment Ordinance, combining PSA with new laws to jail youth for years and impose heavy fines. “Whenever one was about to be released, a fresh PSA was slapped. How much more cruelty will you inflict? How long will Kashmiris endure this injustice?” he asked.
Imran said Mehbooba Mufti had handed sweeping powers to bureaucrats, tightened detention as state policy and rendered the courts powerless before the pleas of ordinary people.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel“And now she stands before those very courts as if seeking justice,” he observed.
He stressed that this was not political rhetoric but the cry of a betrayed people. “Our sons and brothers are still languishing in prisons across India — Tihar, Agra, Jodhpur, Bareilly, Lucknow, Naini, Allahabad, Patna, Jaipur, Ambedkar Nagar, Satna — places where families often do not even know their whereabouts. Yet the author of their detention poses for photographs as the champion of justice. What hypocrisy is this?” he asked.
He traced a detailed chronology of PSA misuse to underline the record of repression: introduced in 1978, strengthened in 1987, nearly 13,000 detentions between 1990 and 1995, around 3,700 under Farooq Abdullah (1996 to 2002), about 1,300 under Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (2003 to 2006), about 2,000 during Ghulam Nabi Azad’s period, roughly 1,400 to 1,500 during Omar Abdullah’s tenure and over 1,700 detentions during Mehbooba Mufti’s administration (150 in 2015, 600 in 2016, 410 in 2017, 510 in 2018).
“These are historical facts not partisan claims,” Imran noted. “When Burhan Wani’s killing provoked unrest, your government used PSA as a whip. Why was it not repealed? Why were so many lives ruined if your professed concern was genuine?”
He reiterated that the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference had never weaponised PSA or profited from the suffering of citizens. “Our politics does not feed on pain. We have ourselves suffered. We have not and will not build power on the tears of mothers or the silence of prisons,” he said.
Imran grilled National Conference over its claims that Omar Abdullah’s sons had managed to get the PSA of an individual from Pulwama quashed.
“Is this what they celebrate as an achievement? The Abdullah princes, now lawyers, may have even taken money to get a PSA quashed. This is the height of hypocrisy! The same family that brought the draconian PSA into Kashmir, under which thousands still languish in jails, is now acting as messiahs of atonement. What a cruel joke on the people of this land. The NC leadership should hang their heads in shame,” Imran said.
He also condemned the cynical exploitation of faith and sentiment for electoral gain in Budgam, alleging that the candidate there who he said has known ties with the RSS is being propped up through manufactured theatrics.
“For Budgam,” Imran charged, “they are reviving hollow religious slogans and staging spectacles to win votes. This candidate with RSS links is being presented as the moral alternative while those who actually authored detentions now claim victimhood.”
Addressing the slapping of PSA on Mehraj Malik (MLA), Imran said those who now speak of the sanctity of institutions were the very people who sat beside attackers and justified violence outside Assembly. “Who attacked Mehraj Malik? The same circles of PDP who today sermonise about the judiciary. This is shamelessness,” he added.
He appealed directly to the people of Kashmir not to fall for such political games. “These ploys are neither Islamic nor moral, neither legal nor humane. They are political manipulations designed to exploit pain for electioneering,” he said.
In closing, Sheikh Mohammad Imran demanded accountability from Mehbooba Mufti and other mainstream leaders of National Conference.
“Mehbooba Mufti must either tell the truth to the nation or apologise to it. The leaders and members of the PDP and the National Conference must answer for their record and seek forgiveness not for cameras but from the people and from Allah. We will demand answers in this world and the next,” he said.
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