J&K police outsmarts Soz, films his visit to ailing sister

Congress leader Saifuddin Soz was evidently outsmarted by the J&K police by allowing him to come out of his house to visit his ailing sister in a Srinagar neighbourhood and then releasing the video footage of the same to substantiate its claim that he was not under house detention.

Mr Soz in a signed statement said that he went to see his ailing sister in Srinagar’s Gulbarg Colony,

Hyderpora, about a couple of furlongs from his own residence where he, as claimed by him, has been under detention for nearly one year. He said, “Since the police would not allow me to travel without its vehicle, two personal security officers accompanied me. When I returned to home, the police produced and released a video showing that I was a free man. This version of the police is nothing more than a white lie”.

The Congress leader said

Saifuddin Soz

that he later during the day tried to go out again to see his daughter but the police did not allow him to move out of his house. “I confirm the fact that I’m under ‘house-arrest’ and I can’t go out, at all. The government version that I was a free man is wrong”, he said. Saying he does not know why the government has resorted to “such underhand means”, he asserted, “I have not violated any law of the land, yet I am under detention. My detention shows how civil liberties stand suppressed in Kashmir.”

The J&K government had earlier informed the Supreme Court that Mr Soz was not under house detention, prompting it to dispose of a plea by his wife claiming that he had been illegally detained.

On Thursday, the J&K government reiterated that he was never detained or put under house arrest. Its spokesperson Rohit Kansal in a tweet claimed that “Mr Saiffudin Soz former MP and Minister not under arrest or detention. He has been to Delhi twice — in October and December. Free to go wherever he likes with usual security drill. No question of lying in Hon SC” (sic)