Sajad Gul- the Journalist from Kashmir’s Bandipora who was booked under the Public Safety Act last year has competed one year under the draconian Public Safety Act and is currently lodged at a central jail in north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The Kashmiriyat had reported that on January 10, 2022 that Sajad, a journalism student at Central University of Kashmir, was arrested by the Army after they searched him in his house house several times, but he was not at his home. The Army, then sought Sajad’s phone number and at around 10 PM the Army returned and called Sajad, he said.
Sajad had asked his family to not worry and went out where the Army was waiting for him. “We kept calling him constantly for several hours and finally someone around 1 picked up the phone and said Sajad had been handed over to the police,” his brother told The Kashmiriyat.
For the initial two days after his detention, the family met the Police officials who told them to keep silent for a few days and Sajad would be released, he said. “Eventually we came to know that FIR was registered against him,” he said.
Sajad was booked under the 120B (party to criminal conspiracy), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), and 505B (fear or alarm to the public) sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Sajad was granted bail and the family was expecting that he would be released soon. Expecting his release, the family went to the police station in order to take Sajad home. But after waiting for hours, the family was told that he wasn’t at the Hajin Police Station.
Speaking to The Kashmiriyat, the family members of Sajad had said that they have no clue regarding his whereabouts. “We went to meet him in the morning and he was not at the Hajin Police Station (where he as initially lodged),” his brother had told The Kashmiriyat.
A Police official had later confirmed that Sajad who was booked under the Public Safety Act has been shifted to Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal Jail.
However, earlier this year, Sajad Gul was shifted to Uttar Pradesh.
In its dossier, Jammu Kashmir police said that the journalist reports less about the “welfare” of the Jammu Kashmir and is “rather promoting enmity”.
The police dossier claimed that his work can “manipulate” the people of Kashmir, posing a “potential threat” to the “sovereignty of the country.”