NEW DELHI: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday launched a sharp attack against Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah over his demand to remove the controversial Public Safety Act in the Union territory.Owaisi reminded Abdullah that the law has been “misused” by every elected and unelected government, which has led to “untold suffering and human rights violations,Taking a poetic jibe on J&K CM, Owaisi said, “The Public Safety Act, 1978 (PSA) was introduced by Sheikh Abdullah in 1978 to deal with smuggling. Farooq Abdullah, GM Shah, Mufti Sayeed, GN Azad, Omar Abdullah & Mehbooba Mufti have all been CMs of J&K. They could have easily repealed PSA & prevented untold suffering and human rights violations.”“The law has been misused by virtually every elected CM & unelected Governors. Over 20,000 people have been jailed since 1978 without criminal charges, fair trials or even a proper appeals process. Some detentions were extended for up to 7-12 years. One separatist was detained under the PSA and, when he was later needed, he was served with a court warrant and granted bail. Now there is a truncated elected government, and it has dawned on it to do away with the PSA,” he added.“Everyone struggles to understand what to do, what to do if a lamp is lit in the day,” Owaisi further said.This comes after Omar Abdullah said that an elected government must have control over state subjects, including law and order and security, for it to remove the PSA.“We said in the manifesto that we would remove the Public Safety and Security Act (PSA) from Jammu and Kashmir. To remove it, we must have statehood. Security, law and order, all these things should be under the control of the elected government,” the JK CM said.“The day these things are ours, I won’t even wait for the assembly session. We will remove the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) through an ordinance,” he added.What is Public Security ActUnder the Public Safety Act (PSA), authorities can detain an individual for up to two years without trial. Originally enacted in 1978 to curb timber smuggling, the law was later invoked to detain political leaders and individuals deemed a threat to public order—particularly during the militancy surge in Kashmir in the early 1990s.One of the most recent detentions under the PSA is that of Aam Aadmi Party MLA Mehraj Malik, who has been lodged in Kathua district jail since September 8, 2025, for allegedly disturbing public order in Doda district and using abusive language against the district’s deputy commissioner.
