Exactly seven months and 20 days after his arrest, Mehraj Malik, the Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Doda East and the party’s Jammu and Kashmir unit president, walked out of Kathua jail on Tuesday morning.
His release came a day after justice Mohammad Yousuf Wani of the Jammu and Kashmir high court quashed his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA), declaring the order illegal.
Malik had been held since September 8 last year on allegations of disturbing public order, a move chief minister Omar Abdullah described as a “gross misuse of law.”
Accompanied by his legal team, led by advocate Appu Singh Slathia, Malik expressed relief as he left Kathua for Jammu.
His counsel said the court’s decision to set aside the Doda District Magistrate’s order bolstered faith in the judiciary, particularly after arguments highlighted how the government’s lackadaisical approach left a sitting legislator’s constituency without representation.
Upon his release, Malik addressed reporters at Samba, saying his imprisonment was a “matter of time” and claiming that scores of others remain behind bars for similar reasons. On the current political climate, he said: “Speaking against the BJP in India has become as difficult as the BJP speaking against the US.”
He said that “the space for a common man in politics has shrunk” and that “not him, but the authorities imprisoned the aspirations of the people”.
{{/usCountry}}He said that “the space for a common man in politics has shrunk” and that “not him, but the authorities imprisoned the aspirations of the people”.
{{/usCountry}}He urged the youth to come forward and join politics, if they wanted to bring a change.
Malik also called on the educated sections of the society to contribute their bit to public life.
“When the common man tries to enter politics and work for the welfare of the people, he is often sidelined or labelled. This mindset needs to change,” he told reporters here.
“It has become difficult to speak openly, but without political engagement, no real change is possible,” he said.
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal also weighed in on the release, escalating the rhetoric by accusing the Prime Minister of targeting opposition leaders with false allegations while failing to show similar strength on the international stage.