People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti was booked on Thursday for sharing content featuring late separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on social media.
The Srinagar cyber police filed the first information report (FIR) under Sections 152 and 156 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) after Mufti posted a 61-second clip of Geelani discussing the importance of the Urdu language.
Section 152 deals with “acts endangering sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India,” a non-bailable offence that replaced the colonial-era sedition law. Section 156, which pertains to public servants voluntarily allowing a prisoner of state to escape, is also non-bailable and carries a potential life sentence—though its application to a social media post suggests a stringent legal stance by investigators. By combining Sections 152 and 156, the police ensure the case is treated with maximum gravity, making it almost impossible for the accused to secure regular bail in the lower courts.
In her post on X, Mufti wrote, “May not concur with Geelani Sahab’s ideology, but this old video of him stressing the importance of Urdu makes a lot of sense in addition to other reasons. Worth a watch.”
This post followed a protest she led on Monday where she blamed the government for replacing Urdu in the revenue department. That claim was subsequently denied by chief minister Omar Abdullah’s adviser Nasir Aslam Wani and deputy chief minister Surinder Chowdhary.
Officials confirmed the investigation is underway and warned that “cases could also be filed against individuals who shared the PDP leader’s post.”
The controversy is rooted in a recent shift in the region’s 137-year-old administrative tradition. Since 1889, Urdu served as the sole official language of Jammu and Kashmir and remains the primary medium for historical land records and revenue documentation. However, following the 2020 Official Languages Act—which added Hindi, Kashmiri, Dogri, and English to the list—the government recently issued draft recruitment rules removing “knowledge of Urdu” a mandatory qualification for revenue posts like tehsildars. The government termed this as a “course correction” to ensure fairness across all five official languages.
