Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference senior leader and Member Parliament, Hasnain Masoodi on Monday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking release of prisoners lodged under Public Safety Act (PSA) in various jails in J&K and outside.
According to the wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the letter reads that “This is draw your kind attention towards to the plight of hundreds of detainees under the Public Safety act lodged in Ambedkar Nagar Agra, Tihar and other jails outside J&K.”
The letter reads: “The detainees, it needs to be realised, are detained without charge and trial on mere suspicion, later found to be misplaced. There are numerous judicial pronouncements commanding the Government to lodge the detenue in a jail nearest to home so that the relatives and friends visit the detenue and the detenue due to lack of social interaction, is not exposed to mental trauma.”
The letter further states that in case of the detainees lodged in jails outside J&K, the direction is being observed in breach. “It needs no emphasis that a detenue is not denuded of all his rights at the prison gate but continues to have availably a number of rights including the right to have an interview with friends and relatives alter reasonable intervals,” it states, adding that, “Lockdown and restrictions imposed on travel and traffic, to combat the COVID-19 crises would make it impossible for the relatives to visit the detenue lodged a few hundred miles from his home, Resultantly the detenue would be exposed to immense psychological distress and his valuable constitutional right defeated. This apart, the detention as universally accepted, because of overcrowding is in conflict with social distancing – a key response to COVID-19 crises. The detainees, otherwise held without charge; or trial, against the said backdrop, deserve to be released and the detention orders revoked.
The letter reads that, “I would, therefore, request you to direct revocation of detention orders against all the detainees lodged within and outside J&K and pending such revocation request you to direct immediate shifting of all the detainees lodged outside J&K back to J&K forthwith”—(KNO)
