Srinagar: The work in court was affected as lawyers, mainly members of Kashmir High Court Bar Association, stayed away from the proceedings in Kashmir Valley on Thursday.
The call for the strike was given by the lawyers body to protest the fresh summon to its president Mian Abdul Qayoom by National Investigation Agency regarding a case registered at the behest of a complainant by government of India.
The NIA summoned Mian Qayoom to its headquarters in New Delhi for questioning again on Thursday.
According the KHCBA, the strike was called to protest “harassment” to its president and announced that its members shall stay away from court work till Mian Qayoom returns from NIA headquarters in New Delhi.
A spokesman of the lawyers’ body said a general body meeting of its members took the decision to stay away from court work earlier this week.
“All the members unanimously decided that since the NIA investigation and calling of Bar President to New Delhi, again, is aimed at to harass and humiliate the Bar Leadership and the purpose behind registration of the criminal case and raiding of houses of Pro-freedom leadership and their activists and dragging them to New Delhi, is to intimidate and threaten them so that they give up their support to the principled cause of people of Kashmir and their inalienable right of self-determination, therefore as a mark of protest, the Bar members shall observe strike from September 14 and continue the same till the President would return back from Delhi,” the KHCBA spokesman said.
It was also decided that the lawyers would meet again in the morning of September 15 in the High Court Bar room to discuss the issue further, he said.
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