After month-long house arrest, Omar, Mehbooba allowed to meet relatives

Nearly a month after they were put under house arrest, National Conference chief Omar Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti were allowed to meet their families earlier this week, sources said.

Since August 5, the former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir were under house arrest as a precautionary measure, just before the Centre revoked Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir; and bifurcated the state into two union territories.

I believe I’m being placed under house arrest from midnight tonight & the process has already started for other mainstream leaders. No way of knowing if this is true but if it is then I’ll see all of you on the other side of whatever is in store. Allah save us ??

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) August 4, 2019

According to an NDTV report, Abdullah met his family twice (on Thursday and Saturday) this week at Hari Niwas in Srinagar. Abdullah’s sister Safia, and her children were allowed to meet him for 20 minutes on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Mufti’s mother and sister were allowed to meet her on Thursday, at a tourism department property in Chesmashahi.

Earlier, Mufti’s daughter earlier wrote an open letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and questioned why she was being “placed under house arrest” despite being “a law-abiding citizen”.

Already under house arrest & not allowed to have visitors either. Not sure how long I’ll be able to communicate. Is this the India we acceded to?

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) August 5, 2019

So far there has been no announcement about the release of the state leaders.