People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday alleged that Aam Aadmi Party MLA Mehraj Malik was detained to divert attention from the vandalism at the Hazratbal shrine in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar, PTI reported.

Malik, the lone AAP legislator from Doda, was detained on Monday under the Public Safety Act for one year on charges of disturbing public order. He was sent to the Kathua district jail.

He is the first sitting legislator in the Union Territory to be held under the preventive detention law that allows persons to be taken into custody to prevent them from acting against “the security of the state or the maintenance of the public order”.

On Wednesday, Mufti told reporters that instead of apologising as religious sentiments were hurt after the Hazratbal controversy, the Jammu and Kashmir administration had “registered a case against people who expressed their anger against the desecration”, PTI reported.

An inauguration plaque bearing the Ashoka emblem inside the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar was damaged on September 5.

The Islamic shrine houses a holy relic of the Prophet Muhammad. The structure had recently undergone a renovation and was inaugurated by Darakshan Andrabi, chairperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader.

A plaque featuring the national emblem was also installed at the site,...

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