STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Justice Rahul Bharti of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court on Tuesday quashed the detention under PSA of Shahbaz Ahmed, alleged antinational.
According to said dossier, the petitioner came to be introduced as a person instrumental in instigating the masses to create law and order problem in the area by being active in anti-national activities and maintaining effective contacts with some anti-national elements/PAK handlers through social media apps.
The petitioner came to be alleged to be in close contact with OGWs of the area and engaged in providing mobile numbers of the families of the killed terrorists and missing youth of the area to the PAK handlers so as to revive militancy/terrorist activity in the area of district Reasi.
The petitioner’s cousin, namely, Mohd. Rafiq and Nazir Ahmed are said to have joined LET outfit in the year 1998 and one of whom came to be eliminated by the security forces and other having surrendered.
With respect to the alleged activities of the petitioner, the Police Station Mahore, Police Post Dewal and Operation Camp Sarh are said to have generated Daily Diary Reports No. 14 dated February 3, 2023, 04 dated February 8, 2023 and 13 dated February 12, 2023.
Justice Rahul Bharti after hearing both the sides observed that personal liberty of a citizen of India, notwithstanding any alleged desperate characterization and profiling of him by law and enforcement authority/agency, cannot be fiddled with without adopting due course of law that too in letter and spirit.
The respondents in their counter affidavit have least bothered to explain as to how come the petitioner was already in the catch and custody of the Police Station Mahore a day before the execution of the detention warrant to be simply handed over at the asking of the Executing Officer Inspector Arun Singh PID No. EXJ-046179 of DPL Reasi.
In view of this serious lacuna with respect to the very detainment of the petitioner in purported reference to the execution of the detention warrant, the detainment of the petitioner under the preventive detention jurisdiction is held to be illegal and deserves to be quashed, court said.
For the reasons mentioned above, Court allowed the petition and ordered that preventive detention order No. 02-PSA of 2023 dated February 20, 2023 whereby the petitioner has been subjected to preventive detention is hereby quashed as a consequence whereof the petitioner is ordered to be restored to its personal liberty by the respondent no. 4-Superintendent, District Jail, Ambphalla, Jammu.
