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Tribune News Service
Srinagar, August 19
Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, who is under house arrest since the night of August 4, was able to speak to some of his friends and family colleagues during a two-hour restoration of his landline phone on Monday.
He informed them that he was “fine” in a tone that reflected the anxiety of the Kashmir politician whose son and many other party colleagues are under arrest for the past two weeks.
His landline phone installed at his residence on the Gupkar road was restored around mid-morning , but within two hours, it was snapped again, sources said.
The communication was restored as the phones were restored in the general area of the Gupkar road that leads to the two other political addresses – Farooq’s son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah and his successor and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti.
Both Omar and Mehbooba were arrested and the two have been lodged separately since August 5 – Omar is in Hari Niwas , the state guest house , and Mehbooba in one of the Cheshma Shahi huts in the neighbourhood of Raj Bhavan.
The sources said that Farooq’s eyes lit up when the phone started ringing as his colleagues had been trying incessantly after they came to know that the landlines in the Gupkar road area in Srinagar had been restored.
The sources said, while Farooq Abdullah, 82, said he was fine, he enquired about the welfare of some of his colleagues in Parliament. He is the MP from the Srinagar constituency.
Farooq Abdullah was seen on TV channels on August 6 when he came out of his house defying the detention orders and broke down over the loss of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories. Thereafter he had not been allowed to move out.
The sources, however, revealed that he was visited by his sister Suriya, an academician, who lives in the adjacent bungalow. Their houses are inter-connected. No other visitor was allowed to meet him during all these days.