Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah have been charged under the stringent Public Safety Act
The CPI(M) on Friday slammed the government for invoking the Public Safety Act against former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, saying the move belies the centre's claims that "everything is normal in Jammu and Kashmir".
Mr Abdullah and Mr Mufti were on Thursday night charged under the stringent PSA, barely hours before their six-month-long "preventive detention" was to come to an end. The PSA was also slapped on two leaders from the National Conference (NC) and its rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The CPI(M) said the Prime Minister, while replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the Rajya Sabha, had claimed that the statements made by the former chief ministers were "not acceptable while it has been shown that these statements have been taken from a twitter handle of a satire website - Faking News".
"The baselessness of this allegation has been established. That the Modi government should take recourse to such false news for slapping the notorious PSA belies the claims that everything is normal in J&K," the CPI(M) said.
"Thousands continue to be detained even after six months. Lakhs of livelihoods have been disrupted and normal day to day activity simply does not exist. This is an affront to the Indian Constitution and democracy," it said.