From 2019 until the present, Jammu and Kashmir administration has lodged cases against over 2300 people of which 1200 cases are filed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Over 954 people are booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Approximately, 46 per cent of those arrested under UAPA and 30 per cent of those arrested under PSA are still in jail, both within and outside J&K.
According to the Indian Express, the police data indicates that 699 people were arrested under the PSA in 2019 and 160 in 2020. Until the end of July 2021, 95 individuals were held under the PSA. 284 people are still being held in custody out of the total.
In the first 30 days after Jammu and Kashmir's special status was removed on August 5, 2019, around 290 individuals were arrested under the PSA. Former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti were among those named in the registered cases. At least 250 individuals were arrested under this law in Kashmir, according to official sources.
Year wise data
2019- 918 were held in 437 cases
2020- 953 people in 557 cases
2021 (till the end of July)- 493 in 275 cases of which 249 cases were reported in Kashmir, 26 in Jammu.
Of these total 2,364 people, 1,100 are still being held in prison.
While the number of PSA cases fell dramatically in 2020, the number of UAPA cases rose. According to a legal expert, this is a “shift on the part of the police to book individuals under the more rigorous law rather than PSA, which needed repeated extensions of custody.”
Meanwhile, approximately 5,500 individuals were put into preventive detention under Section 107 of the Criminal Procedure Code in 2019, according to government sources and all of them have been released now.
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Release Political Prisoners
At a meeting with Prime Minister Modi on June 24 in New Delhi, Valley political leaders demanded the release of prisoners detained under these harsh laws as a confidence-building step before resuming political talks with J&K.
“On the one side, there is an effort to portray a huge shift in the situation on the ground, while so many people remain detained,” PDP spokesperson Suhail Bukhari told a popular media outlet. "The central government, on the other hand, associates statehood with normalcy in Parliament. Only one of these scenarios is possible.”
“They should consider releasing these inmates or relocating those who are outside the state to J&K so that their relatives may at least meet them,” said Nasir Aslam Wani, provincial president of the National Conference.