Former Kashmir chief minister released after 8 months

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

Former Chief Minister of Indian-administered Kashmir Omar Abdullah was released on Tuesday after nearly eight months of detention.

Taking to Twitter, government spokesman Rohit Kansal informed that the authorities have revoked the detention of Abdullah, who was held under a preventive detention law.

Abdullah, 50, working president of the region’s oldest political party National Conference, was detained last year on Aug. 4, a day ahead of India’s revocation of the special status and division of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two centrally administered territories.

Before holding the position of chief minister from 2009-2014, Abdullah also served as India’s junior foreign minister and commerce minister from 1999-2002 in the previous Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

On Feb. 5 this year, Omar and another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti were booked under the Public Safety Act described by Amnesty International as a "lawless law".

In its dossier defending slapping of the act, the government had described him as a threat to public safety. It said he was “planning activities against the union government”.

Under the law, a person can be detained without a judicial trial for up to six months and this detention could be extended up to two years.

Omar’s release was followed after his father, Farooq Abdullah, also a former chief minister and serving member of parliament were released on March 13.

Indian Supreme Court had last week asked the government to respond to the petition filed by Omar’s sister Sara Pilot seeking his immediate release.

Meanwhile, Mehbooba Mufti continues to be under detention. Her daughter, Iltija Mufti who has been handling her mother’s Twitter handle welcomed Omar’s release. She, however, took a jibe at the government for not releasing her mother.

“Glad he [Omar] will be released. For all their talk of Nari Shakti [women power] and women emancipation, it seems like this regime fears the women the most,” she tweeted.

Disputed region

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.