KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
After ruling PDP Lawmakers raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly as “how Public Safety Act (PSA)” be slapped on a youth who was declared “lunatic”, J&K government on late Thursday evening revoked its earlier decision.
The “lunatic” Muslim youth was arrested for allegedly desecrating a temple in Jammu last week.
“The detention order Mo 08/PSA of 2016 dated June 20, 2016 is not justified…and hence has not been approved,” said an order issued by Home Department, disapproving PSA detention of the youth, a newspaper report said.
As per the Home Department order, accessed by Greater Kashmir, YasirAlfaz doesn’t have any criminal background and only one FIR (No 51/2016 P/S) related to the temple incident stands registered against him.
“For the act in question, the investigation is already on, the subject (Alfaz) is in custody and needed to be dealt with under the relevant provision of law,” the order read.
Referring to the incident that had taken place on June 16, the order mentions that Alfaz was suffering from “psychiatric disorder” and the preliminary investigations conducted into the case had suggested that Alfaz was a “lunatic person”.
“Verification of this aspect has neither been indicated in the dossier of SSP, Jammu nor in the grounds of detention,” reads the order. “In the grounds of detention, it has neither been mentioned that the subject (Alfaz) was already under police custody nor the compelling reasons have been indicated for passing a detention order.”
“In view of this the detention order (No 08/PSA of 2016 dated Jun 20, 2016, is not justified on the grounds and hence has not been approved,” read the order.
The issue resonated Lower House of the J&K Legislature when PDP’s Shopian MLA, Adv Yousuf Bhat, sought attention of Speaker Kavinder Gupta on the issue. He was supported by PDP’s MLA Kokernag, Ab Rahim Rather, and Independent Lawmaker, Er Rasheed.
After demand for revocation of PSA on Yasir gained momentum, the right wing BJP Lawmakers were not feeling easy. Lawmaker R S Pathania stood and told Speaker that “being lunatic is no ground to revoke” the PSA. However, he was corrected by Lawyer turned Lawmaker from Kupwara, Bashir Ahmad Dar, who informed the house as “how a law is implemented”. “Grounds of detention have to be explained to a prisoner. How come it is possible to explain grounds of detention to a mad person,” he said, “lunatic people are even exempted from section 302 (murder charge) of RPC.”
Notably, a newspaper report from Jammu on Friday said, “Janipura police station SHO, Inspector Ranvir Singh was on Thursday attached to the district police lines (DPL) Jammu for his alleged failure to control the situation that had erupted after the sacrilegious act at a highly revered religious place at Roop Nagar here on June 14 last week. He was replaced by Inspector Varinder Gupta. The order to this effect was issued by SSP, Jammu, late this evening.” “Bhau was attached to DPL after a department probe found his negligence in the June 14 issue. Virinder was recently transferred to Jammu district and had been waiting for the next posting.”
