Srinagar: The owner of Urdu daily newspaper ‘Afaq’ who was arrested Monday here in a nearly three-decade-old terror case, was Tuesday released on bail by a court here.
Ghulam Jeelani Qadri, editor/printer/publisher of ‘Afaq’, was picked up from his home here in connection with a case registered against him in 1990 when he ran the JAK (Jammu and Kashmir) news agency, police said.
Police said Qadri, 62, had been declared an ‘absconder’ since the registration of the case against him, in which eight other local journalists were named. Three of them have died since then.
Releasing Qadri against a bail bond of Rs 20,000, the court asked the station house officer (SHO) concerned to explain the action taken in the case since the FIR was lodged December 15, 1990. The SHO has also been asked to explain how Qadri was twice issued passports during this period when the police said he had been an absconder.
Qadri was arrested from his residence in Balgarden area of the city, his family said. “It was nearly midnight when police came to arrest Qadri sahib. No reasons were given before taking him away,”a relative said.
Various journalist bodies, including the Kashmir Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), has condemned the midnight arrest of Qadri, alleging it seems the aim of the government’s move was to muzzle the voice of local press.
“Qadri was attending his office on daily basis and there was absolutely no need for carrying out a midnight raid at his residence. The working journalists here are wondering about the timing of execution of the warrant which was issued 26 years ago,” a spokesman of the KUWJ said.
PTI