Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been in detention since August last year, when the Narendra Modi government revoked Article 370 and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.
On Saturday, an unverified picture of Abdullah sporting a long beard went viral and several Opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee , said they were deeply troubled by it.
Following the picture, the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP ) tweeted a screenshot of an order of five razors to Abdullah’s Srinagar residence. It tweeted:
The tweet was deleted after BJP received severe backlash. Twitter users called out the BJP for the insensitive tweet against a former chief minister who has been under detention for almost 6 months without charges.
Abdullah, who was active on Twitter, last tweeted on August 5 the day Article 370 was scrapped.
Abdullah, along with Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti , was taken into preventive custody in August last year. Police officials in Srinagar told Scroll that Omar Abdullah and Mufti were taken into preventive detention under Section 107 (security for keeping the peace in other cases) of the CrPC.
Section 107 of Code of Criminal Procedure allows authorities and an executive magistrate to put any person under preventive custody for a period of six months if information is received that the person is likely to commit a breach of the peace or disturb the public tranquillity, according to PTI.
Meanwhile, Farooq Abdullah has been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA). His detention was extended for three months in December last year.
(With PTI inputs)