Sara disputes J&K's claim of threat to public order if Omar Abdullah freed from detention

Sara Abdullah Pilot Monday disputed in the Supreme Court the claim of Jammu and Kashmir administration that freeing her brother, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who has been detained since the abrogation of Article 370 in August last year, will pose imminent threat to public order.

Pilot, who has challenged Abdullah's detention under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), said that on scrutiny of the verified Facebook account of her brother she was shocked to discover that the social media posts, purportedly attributed to him and maliciously used against him, were not made by him.

"It is denied that the mere presence of the detenu coupled with the decision to abrogate Article 370 would pose an imminent threat to maintain public order. The factual data about the loss of lives in the erstwhile State of J&K is utterly irrelevant for the purposes of the present controversy," she said in a rejoinder to the reply filed by the Jammu and Kashmir administration on her petition.

Pilot claimed that the official Facebook account of Abdullah, being a blue tick marked verified account, has not made any post as claimed in the relied upon material.

Her rejoinder said: "...in the facts and circumstances of the present case wherein the only material used against the detenu are his social media posts, the reliance on posts that are non-existent and have been wrongly and maliciously attributed to the detenu vitiates the impugned order of detention in toto and renders the same legally unsustainable and utterly unconstitutional."
The District Magistrate of Srinagar in his reply filed on Pilot's plea had said "the detenu has been a very vocal critic of any possible abrogation of Article 370 prior to its abrogation on August 5, 2019. It is submitted that considering the very peculiar geo-political position of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and its geographical proximity with Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the concept of 'public order' needs to be examined contextually."