J&K govt in HC defends Shah Faesal's detention, says he's not in unauthorised custody

The Delhi High Court has been informed by the Jammu and Kashmir government that bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal was not in an unauthorised custody after the abrogation of Article 370 and justified his detention at the IGI Airport here.

The state government said it was inconceivable that he would leave the country at this juncture to pursue an academic course in the US.

It said Faesal's liberty is curtailed in accordance with the statutory provisions and under an order passed by an executive magistrate Budgam when he had refused to furnish a bond to keep peace.

"He has submitted his resignation from civil service and joined politics and formed a political outfit named 'J&K Peoples Movement'," said the state government in its affidavit.

"It is not conceivable in the absence of any cogent material to accept the theory that a leader of a political outfit which is very vocal about constitutional actions taken by the constitutional bodies of our country on August 5, would leave the country at this juncture to pursue academic course in Harvard University, that too without a student visa," it said.

The state government, through DIG, CKR, Srinagar, made the submission in response to Faesal's habeas corpus petition in which he has alleged that he was illegally detained at the Delhi airport on August 14 and taken back to Srinagar, where he has been kept under house arrest.