Hilal Lone booked under PSA, declared threat to peace

Srinagar : The Jammu and Kashmir Government Monday booked Hilal Lone, son of National Conference Lok Sabha member Mohammad Akbar Lone, under the Public Safety Act (PSA), the sixth mainstream leader to be charged under the controversial law in the region.
Officials said Lone, who was put under preventive custody in August last year, was booked after his case review yielded adverse results.
The politician and over 40 other leaders were booked under section 107, which requires a review every six months to determine whether a detainee is to remain in custody or be released.
Former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were also booked under the PSA last week, barely a few hours before their preventive detention was to end. The act enables authorities to detain any individual for two years without trial.
In the PSA dossier on Lone, the Jammu & Kashmir government accused the 47-year-old of being a potential threat to peace on account of his association with a party whose manifesto “is to agitate against the abrogation of Article 370”.
“You being a probable MLA candidate of National Conference are a potential threat to public peace and tranquility as you belong to the party whose manifesto is to agitate against abrogation of Article 370, 35A of Constitution of Indian,” read the dossier.
The government also described Hilal Lone as a poster boy of the National Conference and said it will be easy for him to instigate people to agitate.
Dossier against Hilal Lone
The union territory administration accused Lone’s father, a sitting MP from Baramulla constituency, of making seditious and anti-national statements after the scrapping of Article 370 on 5 August, remarks, the government alleged, were the brainchild of Hilal.
The document quoted part of an interview given by Akbar Lone in which he allegedly said the “central government injected energy in the Kashmiri resistance movement” and Pakistan was Kashmiri people.
The government further accused Hilal Lone of making statements for the purpose of sparking a rebellion against India, opposing India’s sovereignty, and fighting against the abrogation of Article 370 “till death”. The dossier also states that Hilal is accused of having a long history in impeding state agencies’ actions against anti-national elements.