OMAR, FAROOQ CHALLENGE DETENTION OF 16 PARTY LEADERS IN COURT
SRINAGAR: National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and his son and the party’s vice president Omar Abdullah on Monday filed petitions seeking the release of 16 senior leaders of the party from detention at their residences, saying they were being held in “brazen violation” of the constitutional guarantee of right to liberty.
According to the writ petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, NC general secretary Ali Mohammed Sagar, provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani, senior leader Aga Syed Mehmood and the party’s chief spokesperson Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, among others, were being detained at their residences without serving them with the grounds for such action.
The leaders have been forcibly restricted to their homes by police personnel stationed outside for the past 11 months, the plea said. A spokesperson for the NC said the decision to move court was taken as a last resort to seek relief for the leaders who have been kept under house detention after being shifted from detention centres. “Shifting of the detainees from the detention centres to their homes only characterised revolving door detention
The house detentions without any administrative order are unlawful, undermining due respect to human rights and individual liberty NC SPOKESPERSON
practice.”
Other leaders for whose release the petitions have been filed are Abdul Rahim Rather, Mohammad Khalil Bandh, Irfan Shah, Sahmeema Firdous, Mohammad Shafi Uri, Chaudhary Mohammad Ramzaan, Mubarak Gul, Dr Bashir Veeri, Abdul Majeed Larmi, Basharat Bukhari, Saifudin Bhat Shutru and Mohammad Shafi.
The senior Abdullah has filed the habeas corpus petition for seven leaders, while his son Omar Abdullah has filed a similar plea for the remaining nine. “The house detentions without any administrative order are unlawful, undermining due respects to the human rights and individual liberty,” the NC spokesperson said, adding that the party hoped the court will come to the rescue of the leaders.