The National Confer­ence (NC) is planning to challenge thedetention of party president and former Chief Minister (CM) Dr Farooq Abdullah under Public Safety Act (PSA) in the court.

Dr Abdullah, Member of Parlia­ment (MP) from Srinagar constitu­ency, was among dozens of leaders of different mainstream political parties, detained on the night of Au­gust 4, hours before centre scrapped Article 370 and 35 A besides down ­graded the Jammu and Kashmir and divided it into two Union Territories(UTs) on August 5.

Those detained also included two former CMs Omar Abdullahand Mehbooba Mufti besides former ministers and legislators.

However, Dr Abdullah was later booked under PSA after his deten­tion in Srinagar was

raised in the Lok Sabha by opposition mem­bers during the discussion on special status of the state. The NC president was later detained at his Gupkar house which was turned into sub-jail.

Recently detention of Dr Abdullah under PSA was extended for three more months.

Extending detention of Dr Abdullah was strongly condemned by Jammu based NC leaders who demanded his immediate release. They described the detention of Dr Abdullah as unconstitutional and against the principal of natural justice. Similar resolution was also passed by NC unit of Ganderbal whocriticized the government for extending the detention of Dr Abdullah.

Two NC MPs Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi and Mohammad Akbar Lone said the party is planning to challenge the detention of Dr Abdullah,three time CM, in the court.

However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah in his speech in theParliament justified the detention of mainstream leaders, including Dr Farooq Abdullah. He said arrest of these leaders helped to maintain law and order. He further said that father of Dr Abdullah's father Sheikh Abdullah was detained by Congress for eleven years.

Some leaders of different political parties were released after they reportedly gave a written assurance that they will not indulge in any activities which could disturb law and order in the state.

Almost all separatist leaders, including Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) chief Shabir Ahmad Shah and JKLF president Mohammad Yaseen Malikare under detention for the past about two years in different cases, including funding. Chairmen of both the factions of Hur­riyat Conference (HC) Syed AliShah Geelani and Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq are under house arrest while their                     spokespersons are de­tained in Delhi's Tihar jail.