On July 17, when 65-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Bhat received summons from a local police post in Chogal, part of North Kashmir’s Handwara area, he did something unusual. After evening prayers at the local mosque, he stood up and addressed the group of worshippers.
“He told the gathering that he has been summoned by the police and they might arrest him,” recalled his son, 32-year-old Haneef Mohammad Bhat. “It seemed he had sensed something. That is why he apologised to everyone in the mosque, asked them for forgiveness in case he had ever hurt or caused any harm to anyone.”
When Bhat went to the police that day, he was detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law. He was taken to the Anantnag district jail in South Kashmir, more than 130 kilometers away from his home.
After August 5, when the Centre stripped Jammu and Kashmir of special status under Article 370 and split the state into two Union Territories, Bhat became one of the many prisoners shifted to jails outside the Valley. A lifelong member of the banned socio-religious organisation, Jamaat-e-Islami, Bhat was transferred to Uttar Pradesh’s Naini jail.
Five months after he was detained, Bhat...
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