Srinagar, Sep 05: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed the preventive detention of a Kupwara man under the Public Safety Act (PSA), observing that mere possession of books with “dispiriting titles” does not by itself make a person a criminal or justify preventive detention.
A single bench of Justice Moksha Khajuria Kazmi, while hearing a petition filed by Shafat Maqbool Wani, held that the detention order issued by the Kupwara District Magistrate was based on grounds that were not supported by material demonstrating any subversive activity by the petitioner.
The court also noted that the authorities had wrongly attributed authorship of certain alleged anti-national books recovered from Wani’s residence to him. Police had claimed to have seized books titled “Construction of an Islamic Order in Hindutva Reimagination” and “The Saffronization of Occupied Kashmir, Demystifying Hindutva Settlers, Colonial Designers”, while alleging that Wani was their author.
Justice Kazmi observed that, being a scholar, Wani could reasonably be expected to possess a variety of literary material. The court further rejected the contention that he had developed a separatist ideology since childhood merely because his father had been an ex-militant, describing the assertion as “delusory”.
The court said preventive detention could not be justified on such assumptions in the absence of evidence indicating that the petitioner had engaged in any subversive activity warranting such action. It consequently quashed the detention order and directed the authorities to release Wani forthwith.
The detention order had been passed by the Kupwara District Magistrate on September 13, 2025, under the PSA on the grounds that Wani’s activities were allegedly “detrimental to the security of the State”. Among the grounds cited by the authorities were invitations extended to him to attend international conferences. The order was issued on the same day Wani was granted bail by a Jammu NIA court in a UAPA case registered at Handwara police station.
The ruling comes against the backdrop of the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s August 5, 2025 ban on the publication and circulation of 25 books on Kashmir, which the Home Department had said promoted a “false narrative” and “secessionism”. The banned works included books by Arundhati Roy, Tariq Ali, Pankaj Mishra and journalist-author David Devadas, among others. (with inputs from from agencies)
