Srinagar corporator arrested for sexual harassment booked under PSA

STATE TIMES NEWS

Srinagar: A Srinagar municipal corporator arrested last month on various allegations, including sexual harassment, rioting and assault, has been booked under the stringent Public Safety Act, police said on Friday.
Aqib Ahmed Renzu was arrested on September 23 after the victim produced “strong technical evidence” against him, officials said.
The corporator of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) is a resident of the city’s Nishat area.
“SMC corporator Aqib Ahmed Renzu S/o Bilal Ahmed Renzu booked under PSA & has been lodged in Kot Balwal jail, Jammu,” Srinagar Police said in a post on X.
Renzu has seven FIRs registered against him in different police stations of Srinagar, police said.
“The offences range from rioting, assault, blackmail, sexual harassment and outraging modesty etc,” an official said.
The Public Safety Act (PSA) was enacted by then chief minister Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah in 1978 initially to check timber smuggling. However, the law was later used to book militants, separatists and others.
It is a preventive detention law under which a person is taken into custody to prevent them from acting harmfully against “the security of the state or the maintenance of the public order” in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (now a Union Territory). PSA, which applies only to Jammu and Kashmir, is similar to the National Security Act.