Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti will remain detained under the stringent Public Safety Act after the authorities extended it by another three months, barely three hours before it was to expire.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration also extended the detention of senior National Conference leader Ali Mohammed Sagar and PDP's Sartaj Madani for three months under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
The order extending the PSA, issued by the home department of the UT, evoked sharp reactions from political parties.
"Stifling voices of reason has become the norm for the current dispensation esp post illegal scrapping of Article 370. Therefore, extension of my mother's detention doesn't surprise me. Wishful thinking to assume that by smothering any debate on Article 370, the issue will vanish," Iltija, daughter of Mufti, tweeted from the official handle of her mother.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, who was released from the PSA in March, termed the extension of the PSA on Mufti and others "unbelievably cruel and retrograde decision".
In a tweet, he said "...nothing she has done or said in any way justifies the way the Indian state has treated her and the others detained."
On detention of Sagar, who is NC general secretary of the, Omar tweeted, "I'm struggling to get my head around the decision and the logic behind it because it smacks of vindictiveness and nothing else. New Delhi needed to make friends in JK but is doing the opposite."