4,000 people arrested in Jammu and Kashmir since August 5, say govt sources

People of Jammu and Kashmir have been put under strict restrictions since August 5 as Modi government scrapped Article 370. Over 400 political leaders have been under house arrest, many more people have been detained but the government hasn’t revealed any official numbers of the people kept under detention and in house arrest.

According to a report by Agence France Presse (AFP), over thousands of people have been detained in Jammu and Kashmir over fears of protest and unrest after the statehood was taken away from the state, said government sources.

A J&K magistrate said on the condition of anonymity that at least 4,000 people were arrested and held under the Public Safety Act (PSA), reported AFP.

PSA is a controversial law that allows authorities to imprison someone for up to two years without any charge or trial.

“Most of them were flown out of Kashmir because prisons here have run out of capacity,” the magistrate said. Magistrate also stated that he used a satellite phone allocated to him to collate the figures from colleagues across Jammu and Kashmir.

Government officials have repeatedly declined to provide a tally of how many people have been taken into custody.

The officials had said that “a few preventive detentions” were made to avoid a "breach of the peace" in a region that has fought an armed rebellion against Indian rule for three decades.

Rohit Kansal, Jammu and Kashmir government spokesman had said earlier that there was no centralised figure for the total number of people detained.

According to this report by AFP, numerous government officials in Srinagar, including police and security personnel have confirmed the sweeping arrests though unofficially amd on the condition of annonymity.

A Police officer told anonymously “around 6,000 people were medically examined at a couple of places in Srinagar after they were detained. They are first sent to the central jail in Srinagar and later flown out of here in military aircraft,” he added.

Thousands are jailed, but the figure did not include other residents whose detentions at police stations had not been recorded, said another security official

Although, over the past few days, restrictions have been eased and landline and internet services have been resumed as well in some areas.