A night before the counting of votes for the 280 seats in District Development Council (DDC) elections in Jammu and Kashmir, leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) claimed that three of its senior leaders were arbitrarily detained on Monday, 21 December.
The leaders reportedly taken into custody were senior leader Naeem Akhtar, Mufti’s uncle Sartaj Madni, and her former political adviser Peerzada Mansoor Hussain.
A senior PDP leader also reportedly said that Ganderbal district president, Bashir Ahmad Mir, hadn’t been responding to the party either, and his family had been informed of his detention.
In response, Mufti took to Twitter to claim that J&K had fallen at the hands of “out and out gunda raj” – a suspension of rule of law.
'Murder of Democracy in J&K’
“J&K admin is on an arrest spree today. PDPs Naeem Akhtar too has been abducted by J&K Police & is being taken to MLA hostel. Looks like BJP is planning to manipulate DDC results tomorrow & don’t want any resistance. Democracy is being murdered in Jammu and Kashmir,” she added.
Later, Naeem Akhtar’s daughter Shehryar Khanum claimed that her father had been arrested at an “unearthly hour” with “no order or government instruction” shown to his family.
According a report by The Indian Express, a senior PDP leader has said that these detentions, which are mostly of leaders close to Mehbooba Mufti, are aimed at making her “withdraw from active politics".
(inputs from The Indian Express)
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