While 'daddy's girl', Mehbooba Mufti continue to remain under detention, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, sporting a salt and pepper beard, stepped out of the Hari Niwas Palace, 232 days after his detention order was revoked by the Jammu & Kashmir Government on Tuesday.
Omar, along with PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and hundreds of other senior politicians were detained in Srinagar ahead of abrogation of Article 370 on August 5.
Minutes after arriving at his Guplar road residence, Omar, broke bread with his parents and also posted a picture by immediately logging in to his twitter account. "Had lunch with my mum & dad for the first time in almost 8 months. I can't remember a better meal even though I've been in a bit of a daze & don't remember what I ate", tweeted Omar Abdullah.
Before stepping out of the Hari Niwas palace, Omar was served an official order of the Home Department.
The order issued by Principal Secretary,Home Department, Shaleen Kabra,stated, "in exercise of the powers conferred under section 19(1) of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, the government hereby revokes the detention order dated February 5, 2020, issued by the District Magistrate, Srinagar, of Omar Abdullah with immediate effect".
Omar signed the order around 1.00 p.m and left the Hari Niwas palace. Outside the gate, security personnel, had to struggle alot to keep his well wishers away to ensure social distancing.
Speaking to reporters, Omar said, I had thought a lot over what I will be telling you once I am free but we have already landed in a situation in which we are actually violating what we are supposed to do," Omar Abdullah told reporters at the gate of the Palace. "Right now our priority is to fight the Corona virus, ensure that we, our families, friends and neighbours survive the onslaught of the virus and then we will talk about things."
Omar said he wanted to talk about what happened on August 5, but the situation is changed. "We will pick these issues once we defeat the virus first," he added.
Reacting to the release of Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba's daughter Iltija Mufti posted a tweet, "Glad he will be released. For all their talk of nari Shakti & women emancipation, seems like this regime fears women the most".
Omar also wrote series of tweets thanking team of lawyers and party workers.
"I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kapil Sibal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Reyaz Shariq and their legal teams for taking the fight against my unjust PSA detention to the SC. Thank you to my baby sister Sara for filing the petition to have me freed".