Three Kashmiris booked under Public Safety Act and arrested

On April 8th, three Kashmiri civilians were booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district for their alleged involvement in pro-freedom activism. 

Mysir Majeed Malik, Abdul Ahad Dar, and Ahmad Waza, are the three civilians who were detained arbitrarily by Jammu and Kashmir police. 

The three civilians have been detained and subsequently incarcerated in district jails of Kupwara and Islamabad (known as Anantnag in state vocabulary). 

According to Amnesty International, Kashmiris detained under the PSA run a high risk of being tortured, as many are denied access to family or lawyers for long periods of time. Torture is widely used in police stations and interrogation centres in Jammu and Kashmir to extract confessions or information, to humiliate or punish detainees, leading to dozens of reported deaths in custody. 

Hundreds of people are thought to be held in preventive detention or on a range of criminal charges despite court orders for their release. Often, when the state anticipates that detainees will be released on bail, it uses the PSA to ensure their continued detention. 

The vaguely formulated act allows for detention for up to two years without charge or trial on the purported presumption that they may in the future commit acts harmful to the interests of the state.