No one called ex-JK CMs 'anti-national', decision on their release by UT admin

New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah has said neither he nor anyone from the government has ever called the three detained former chief ministers of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir "anti-national", and added that a decision on their release will be taken by the administration of the union territory.

Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti had to be detained for "some time" after they made provocative statements, the home minister said on Thursday night while addressing an event organised by media outlet ABP News.

"Please see the statements made by them, like the entire country will be on fire if Article 370 was touched...In the backdrop of these statements, a professional decision was taken to keep them under detention for sometime," Shah said at the news summit.

Such statements amounted to giving Pakistan an invitation to discuss Article 370, he said.

"Everyone including the Congress, is asking questions about the detentions. Surprisingly, Congress has forgotten that it had jailed Farooq Abdullah's Sheikh Abdullah for 12 years in Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu," the home minister said, adding that the opposition party had also incarcerated 60,000 politicians across the country for 19 months.

"And these people (the Congress) are asking us questions within six months...," he said, in a reference to the Emergency from 1975-1977.