Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed the detention of four people, including senior leader of breakaway Hurriyat Conference (HC) Masarat Alam, detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA) for their alleged role in 2010 unrest in the valley.
A single bench of the high court comprising Justice Hasnain Masoodi directed the government to release all the detenues if they were not involved in any other offence.
The court gave the order on Saturday after hearing arguments from both sides on separate petitions filed the detenues, challenging their detention under the PSA.
Alam, considered a confidant of Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was alleged to have provoked people to take to the streets and observe strikes in 2010, when more than 120 people, mostly youths, were killed in alleged firing by security forces.
The state government had slapped another detention order under the PSA against Alam in January this year after his earlier detention was quashed by the court.
The petitioner through his counsel, Mian Abdul Qayoom, had challenged his detention on several grounds, including the one that the latest detention order had the same grounds under which Alam was booked earlier which was quashed by the court.
{{/usCountry}}The petitioner through his counsel, Mian Abdul Qayoom, had challenged his detention on several grounds, including the one that the latest detention order had the same grounds under which Alam was booked earlier which was quashed by the court.
{{/usCountry}}The counsel for the petitioner said, "It is a well-settled law that after a detention order is quashed against a detainee, he cannot be detained again on the same grounds on which he was booked earlier."
He pleaded before the court that the detention order passed against Alam in January 2012 was illegal, improper and unconstitutional and required to be quashed.
The court also quashed the detention orders of Ameer-e-Hamza, Nazir Ahmad Ganie and Waqar Ahmad Morkah.