NIA may step in on Masarat Alam release case

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Home Minister Rajnath Singh would share details of the response received from the J&K government on the release of Kashmiri hardliner Masarat Alam with the House.

The PM added: “In the coming days, we will take whatever action is required and we are committed to the nation’s integrity.”

This is the second time in a week that the government was cornered by the Opposition on statements or actions by the PDP-BJP government in Kashmir.

Making identical statements in both Houses, Mr Singh admitted that the BJP had “ideological differences” with the PDP, and asserted that “nobody, howsoever powerful”, would be allowed to play with national integrity.

Mr Singh also said the Centre will not shy away from issuing the “strongest advisory” and would inform the House about the action taken, while shifting the blame on the previous Congress-NC government for not referring the matter of Alam’s detention under the Public Safety Act in September 2014.

Justifying the formation of government with the PDP in the state, he said it was necessitated due a fractured mandate, and the BJP had joined hands with it to ensure that the state develops and flourishes.

The Centre is, meanwhile, considering handing over a few cases involving Masarat Alam, in which he was booked under the UAPA, to the National Investigation Agency.

The J&K government, meanwhile, said in its report that “Alam was arrested as he was instrumental in provoking Kashmiri youth into street protests and stone-pelting in a big way in 2010”. It further said Alam was detained eight times since 2010. “There are no fresh grounds to book him under the PSA, and therefore he has been released”, it said.

PDP leader Mir Mohammad Fayaz attacked the Congress for raising the issue now given that it did not utter a word when the PDP-Congress coalition in 2002 had released Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Shabir Shah and Yasin Malik. Mr Fayaz alleged Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress had compromised on principles to get elected to the Rajya Sabha even as five Congress MLAs had voiced “similar views as the PDP” on the hanging of Afzal Guru.

Mr Azad rebutted the charge, saying three or four MLAs had in response to a statement by the PDP chief spokesperson, now a minister, said that on humanitarian grounds the family should have been allowed to meet Guru and his body handed over to them.