PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday claimed her party’s youth wing president Waheed Para, arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir Police last month, was being kept under “inhuman conditions and tortured” to compel him to admit to false indictment, a charge denied by the police as “unfortunate”.
The 61-year-old former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir took to Twitter on Wednesday morning alleging that the Criminal Investigation Department of the police had been torturing Para and that he was also being kept under inhuman condition.
“JK CID has joined the list of central agencies that work to terrorise Kashmiris and falsely implicate them. After failing to substantiate charges against PDP’s @parawahid, CID replaced the SIT head because he refused to be an accomplice in framing invented charges,” she claimed.
She claimed that “Waheed is being persecuted and tortured to admit the false allegations. Since an admission didn’t happen he is being kept under inhuman conditions. This investigation has been fraudulent and politically motivated from day one.”
Mehbooba said the norm of “dictating such deceitful investigations is ‘Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime’. Shameful and appalling that these actions discredit and bring disrepute to the institutions meant to uphold law and order”.
Later in the day, the Jammu and Kashmir Police without naming the former chief minister termed the comments “unfortunate” and said “the CID is answerable to the courts on all aspects including whether amenities and rights available to a person under custodial investigation and his legal obligations to cooperate in the investigation are being complied.”
In an apparent reference to Mehbooba’s remarks, police said, “Recent comments about the CID investigations in the public domain through social media are unfortunate for two reasons: for being factually incorrect and making the CID officers vulnerable to increased threats and enhanced risks.”
“It is also fraught with the risks of adversely influencing the witnesses and the course of investigation. It is factually incorrect that an under-investigation person was tortured. The CID investigations are done professionally and as per law,” the police said in a statement in Jammu.
The police said each and every arrested person is presented before competent court periodically as per law. “Every arrested suspect has access to health care and doctors. It is neither proper nor lawful to discuss and pass verdict-like remarks in the public domain about ongoing complex investigations,” it said.
It said, “The CID is answerable to the courts on all aspects including whether amenities and rights available to a person under custodial investigation and his legal obligations to cooperate in the investigation are being complied.”
Para was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on November 25 last year in a case related to his alleged links to the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit. He was later granted bail by an NIA court on January 9.
However, the PDP youth leader, who won the District Development Council (DDC) elections held in November-December last year, was arrested by the police shortly after he walked out of a jail in Jammu and continues to remain in custody.