No meeting with party leaders on Monday, says tweet from Mehbooba’s account

india

Updated: Jul 07, 2020 19:43 IST

A tweet late on Sunday night from Mehbooba Mufti’s account denied she was meeting a 10-member People’s Democratic Party team on Monday as was reported by a news agency. The development comes after a team of National Conference (NC) leaders met party patron Farooq Abdullah and former CM Omar Abdullah on Sunday.

“No meeting between Miss Mufti & PDP Jammu leaders in Srinagar tomorrow as reported by media,” a tweet from PDP leader’s account said. Her twitter account was being handled by her daughter Iltija ever since Mufti was detained, says a pinned tweet in Mehbooba’s social media account.

The Adbullahs and Mufti have been kept under house arrest since the Centre’s August 5 move on Jammu and Kashmir. The Centre, through a Presidential order, scrapped Article 370, which provided for Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

The state has been under security lockdown since August 5 and leaders from Delhi are not allowed to visit the leaders in J&K.

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A night before the Centre was to bring in its bill bifurcating Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, security forces occupied civilian installations and police stations were put in “standby mode” in Kashmir Valley. The police enforced Section 144 of CrPC (banning unlawful assembly) in Srinagar district.

Late on the night of August 4, NC vice-president Omar Abdullah and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti were placed under house arrest.

On August 21, the Mufti family sent a letter to the local police asking for a meeting between Mehbooba Mufti and her aging mother Gulshan Mufti, but was not granted permission.

“We wrote a letter to the Jammu and Kashmir Police asking for a short meeting. We even said ‘you can frisk her’. It has been 21 days and we have no word on the arrested leaders. Why are mothers and daughters not being allowed to meet? How will that impact the ground situation,” Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Sana Iltija Mufti told HT in a phone conversation.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration has restored several landlines but not those installed at political homes.

Earlier this month, the Jammu and Kashmir administration said that political leaders and activists under detention in Kashmir will be released in a phased manner after an analysis of each individual. Officials in Delhi said former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were unlikely to be freed immediately.