Srinagar, January 25, 2020 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, former president of High Court Bar Association (HCBA), Nazir Ahmad Ronga has said that the Indian judiciary is under challenge and that the illegally detained Kashmiri lawyers should be released to defend the petition they filed against the repeal of special status of Kashmir by the Indian government.
Nazir Ahmad Ronga, who spent more than five months in a jail in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was part of the group of Kashmiri lawyers that had filed the petition in the Supreme Court of India against the scrapping of Article 370 that granted special status. He was detained on the morning of August 9, just four days after the Indian government repealed Kashmir’s special status.
“I was taken to the nearest police station (Nishat) and later shifted to Srinagar Central Jail,” Ronga said in a media interview in Srinagar. He was booked under the draconian law, Public Safety Act (PSA), and shifted to the Indian jail. Last week, the Indian authorities revoked the PSA against 26 individuals including Nazir Ahmed Ronga. He has rubbished the charges.
“We (lawyers) were taking the legal route to fight the scrapping of Article 370. How can challenging the authorities’ decision in the Indian Supreme Court be tantamount to threat to law and order?” he asked.
Ronga was not the only advocate who was detained after the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status. His colleagues – the incumbent President of HCBA, Mian Abdul Qayoom and General Secretary Muhammad Ashraf Butt, who were also defending Article 370 in the Supreme Court – are still languishing in Agra and Srinagar jails.
“The authorities have no grounds to arrest Mian Qayoom and Ashraf Butt, just like it was in my case,” he said. “They must release them and pave way for us to go to Delhi and plead the case. Otherwise they should close the institution. Close the Supreme Court. And tell us that SC is not meant for Kashmiris; that we will not be heard. Matter closed,” he added.
Ronga said arresting lawyers who are defending a particular case amounts interference with the functioning of the court. “If you create impediments to a lawyer who is defending a particular case, it is contemptuous. Why are the authorities afraid? Let the SC give a decision. It will be binding,” he said. Talking about the possibility of reversing of the Modi government’s decision on Article 370 in the court, Ronga said, they have a strong case and that he is optimistic that the decision would come in their favour.
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