The Supreme Court has quashed the preventive detention of Sambhal violence accused Mulla Afroz under the National Security Act, ruling that a custodial or extra-judicial confession alone cannot form the subjective satisfaction needed to detain a person. A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu struck down the October 13, 2025 detention order and its November 28, 2025 confirmation by Uttar Pradesh. The court directed that Afroz be released unless he is wanted in any other case. In a strong censure, the bench imposed costs of Rs 10 lakh on the state for the wrongful detention. The court held that relying only on a confession recorded during custody to justify preventive detention violates established legal safeguards. Such an order, it said, cannot stand when there is no other supporting material. Afroz was among those accused in the violence that erupted in Sambhal on November 24, 2024, during a court-ordered survey of a mosque, in which four people died. The ruling reinforces the limits on preventive detention powers and is expected to affect similar cases across the country.