Preventive Detention

When a crime is committed in full public view, what reason can there be for not prosecuting but instead invoking a preventive detention law such as the National Security Act (NSA), as has been done in the case of Varun Gandhi.

People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) as a matter of principle opposes the use of preventive detention, be it the NSA or various state level laws, because when a person has committed a crime then he/she ought to be prosecuted and convicted rather than booked under NSA or equivalent state laws. Conversely, when no crime has been committed but common persons are booked under preventive detention and incarcerated, at times for more than the stipulated period, it is because authorities want to smother and gag dissent and dissidence.