SRINAGAR: Three term Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah was on Monday charged under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and his house on Gupkar Road in Srinagar designated a “jail.”

PSA is a stringent law that enables detention without trial for up to two years without trial, and has been used extensively by successive governments in Jammu and Kashmir. The arrest under this tough law came on the day that the Supreme Court took up a petition against his "illegal detention".

Abdullah has been charged with "disturbing public order" under the law, which means shorter detention of three months. He had managed to come out briefly shortly after being detained under house arrest to address the media, and question the government’s decision to abrogate Articles 370 and 35 A and place the Valley under curfew after arresting all top leaders.

Hundreds of politicians including his son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were detained or arrested last month. At that time when MPs had pointed to Farooq Abdullahs absence in Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that he was neither detained nor arrested. Abdullah subsequently had countered this.

The Citizen Photographer Basit Zargar was able to take photographs of the immediate restrictions on Gupkar Road after PSA was slapped on the former Chief Minister. Farooq Abdullah has his residence here, a VIP road in Srinagar that has been completely cordoned off.