Srinagar: Kashmir High Court Bar Association on Friday strongly condemned the re-arrest of Asiya Andrabi and Fahmeeda Sofi despite the orders of the J&K High Court directing their release forthwith from the preventive custody.
In a stamen issued here, the lawyers’ body termed it “barbaric, inhuman and an act of worst kind of political victimization.”
“The Bar Association maintains that it was under the orders of detention dated 09.05.2017, that Asiya and Fahmeeda were detained under PSA and lodged at Amphalla Jail, Jammu, despite the fact that the detaining authority had directed their lodgment, firstly at District Jail Baramulla, which was got subsequently changed and they were directed to be lodged at District Jail Amphalla, Jammu. However, when the orders were quashed by the High Court on 30 August 2017, when both Asiya and Fahmeeda were in Srinagar in connection with the cases pending against them in some courts at Srinagar, they deserved to be released forthwith, keeping in view their falling health and multiple ailments, which had even prompted the presiding officers of the courts to refer them to SMHS Hospital Srinagar and Chest Disease Hospital Srinagar for treatment,” a spokesman of the lawyers’ body said.
The police, he said, in an act of “sheer victimization, dragged out the two lady detainees from the hospital and forcibly took them to Jammu, during night and dumped them again in District Jail Amphalla, Jammu, without caring for the state of their health and the ailments.”
“The Bar Association feels it is a clear-cut proof of the fact that there is no rule of law in Kashmir and police at all levels is engaged in subversion of law, which is bound to effect the prestige and majesty of the Courts and also lower down its prestige and image in the estimation of general public,” it said. The lawyers’ body also felt that it was a fit case where the high court should take suo-moto cognizance of the matter and get the two lady detainees released from detention and handed over to their relatives forthwith.
The Bar Association also expressed its dismay over the continued detention of hundreds of youth of Kashmir, including Tahir Hussain Mir (24), a Journalism student, hailing from Bandipora, who was ordered to be released by a division bench of the court after quashing his detention order under PSA on August 24. “He was ordered to be released forthwith, but he continues to be in detention, even at present in derogation of the orders of the Court.”
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