Left parties hit out at Centre over Farooq Abdullah's detention in Kashmir

The Left parties slammed the government on Monday over former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah's detention in the valley and said instead of trying to find a solution to the crisis, it was being aggravated.

On Sunday night, Abdullah, the 81-year-old patron of the National Conference (NC), was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).

He was under house arrest since August 5, when the Centre announced abrogation of the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcation of the state into Union territories.

"The Left parties have been demanding that all the leaders detained in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370 should be released so that the government can engage with them and find a solution. Instead of doing that, the government has now detained a senior leader under a draconian law and aggravated the situation there," Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary D Raja said.

He also alleged that the PSA was slapped on Abdullah in an "arbitrary and brazen manner".

CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim accused Union Home Minister Amit Shah of lying on the floor of Parliament over the issue of Abdullah's detention.

In a tweet, he attached a video grab of Shah in Parliament last month, in which the home minister said Abdullah was neither detained nor arrested.

"Amit Shah lied on the floor of the parliament claiming that Farooq Abdullah didn't come to Lok Sabha on his own will but today we all know that Mr Abdullah had been under detention since 4 August, under the draconian PSA. Does India's Home Minister have any credibility today?", the Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP tweeted.