India is still trampling on civil liberties in Kashmir

SAIFUDDIN SOZ is not under house arrest; he is just not allowed to leave his home. Now 82 years old, he once represented the northern Kashmir valley in the national parliament in Delhi. He spent five years as a minister in the government of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister who preceded the present one, Narendra Modi. Since August 5th, 2019, the day parliament deprived Jammu & Kashmir of its statehood at Mr Modi’s behest, the police have forced Mr Soz to remain in his home. “You are under house arrest,” they told him. His family petitioned the courts for his release, since he has not been charged with any crime, much less convicted. But the Supreme Court dismissed the request, since the authorities had informed the honourable justices that Mr Soz was “never detained nor under house arrest”. When local journalists went to Mr Soz’s home to get his reaction to the happy news, he tried to speak to them over the fence—until uniformed soldiers pulled him away.