india

Updated: Mar 24, 2020 17:40 IST

In his first remarks after his release from detention after seven months, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday asked the government to restore mobile data connectivity in the state so that the people could be made aware of the precautions to be taken to avoid coronavirus disease. Abdullah, who turned 50 earlier this month, also asked the government to release the other political prisoners in the state irrespective of their political ideology.

Omar Abdullah’s release from detention came hours after the Jammu and Kashmir revoked orders to detain him under the Public Safety Act on Tuesday morning.

Watch: Omar Abdullah walks out of detention after 7 months, PSA revoked

Abdullah, who spent more than seven months at a government guest house Hariniwas which was declared as sub jail, was released after a medical checkup. The National Conference leader headed straight to his residence at Gupkar which had been sealed by the police.

Omar Abdullah drove his vehicle from Hariniwas to his home in Srinagar’s posh locality, also briefly to journalists on his release. The former chief minister told reporters that he would speak on the scrapping of Article 370 at some point but for now, the immediate priority was to fight coronavirus disease.

He asked people to take the precautions to avoid contracting this disease. “We’re fighting a battle of life and death,” Omar Abdullah said, still sporting a long pepper and white beard. The former chief minister, who had been active on social media before his detention, tweeted a photograph of the release orders with his photograph, sitting in the driver’s seat of his vehicle.

“232 days after my detention today I finally left Hari Niwas. It’s a very different world today to the one that existed on 5th August 2019,” he said. A few minutes later, he tweeted again.

“Had lunch with my mum & dad for the first time in almost 8 months. I can’t remember a better meal even though I’ve been in a bit of a daze & don’t remember what I ate,” he tweeted.

Omar Abdullah was picked up by security forces hours before the Centre moved Parliament to scrap Article 370, divided the state into two Union Territories and imposed restrictions in the Kashmir valley.

Omar was initially detained under Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that empowers an executive magistrate to order a person to execute bonds “for keeping the peace”. Just before his detention was to expire in February 2020, the government invoked the Public Safety Act to hold him. This law empowers authorities to hold any person for two more years.

The government’s decision to invoke the stringent law prompted Omar Abdullah’s sister, Sara Abdullah Pilot, to move the Supreme Court in February, arguing that his detention was “unconstitutional”. A two-judge bench of the top court, which had asked the government in February to explain Omar Abdullah’s detention, last week cautioned the government that it would take up the petition on merits on the next date of hearing if the state did not release him.

Omar Abdullah’s father and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, who was also detained along with his son, had been released on March 13.

The National Conference called Omar Abdullah’s release “a good step” and nudged the government to release other political prisoners as well.

“Now without wasting any time, the government should release other prisoners and shift the prisoners who are in different jails in the country and detained before August 5 as we are passing through testing times,’’NC MP, Husnain Masoodi told Hindustan Times.

After seven months of detention, Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah was released on March 13.

Farooq Abdullah had then visited Omar Abdullah at the sub jail along with his wife Molly Abdullah and daughter, Safia Abdullah.