Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and President of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Mehbooba Mufti tweeted that the passport office has refused to issue a passport to her.
She stated that the said office cited a Jammu and Kashmir's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) report as reason for refusal.
"Passport Office refused to issue my passport based on CID's report citing it as 'detrimental to the security of India. This is the level of normalcy achieved in Kashmir since Aug 2019 that an ex Chief Minister holding a passport is a threat to the sovereignty of a mighty nation (sic)," she wrote.
The letter shared by Mufti mentioned that her passport application was received on 11 December 2020 and was forwarded for police verification report (PVR), however, a negative report was received.
Omar Abdullah Reacts
Reacting to the development, National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah questioned how Mufti was not a “threat to the nation when her party was allied with the BJP?”
Mehbooba Mufti was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case earlier in March. On 19 March, the Delhi High Court refused to grant stay on summons issued by ED. “We are not granting any relief,” a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh had said.
Mufti had expressed that dissent in the country has been criminalised after she was questioned by the ED for more than five hours on 25 March.
"Dissent has been criminalised in this country. The ED, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) are being misused to silence the Opposition tactically," Mufti said as she exited from the ED office at Rajbagh.
On 13 October 2020, the Jammu and Kashmir government revoked Mufti’s detention. Mufti had been detained on the eve of the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status and its bifurcation into two Union Territories on 5 August 2019.
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