Srinagar, April 07 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, the puppet authorities are not releasing senior APHC leader, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori, even after the High Court has quashed his detention under black law, Public Safety Act (PSA), for the third time.
Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori’s family said in an interview that the High Court quashed the third PSA against him on March 20 but instead of releasing him, the police have secured remand for him from a local court in Sopore.
Now the family has lost hopes of his release again, as police secured a remand for seven days on April 4, in what the family said were “same old charges”.
Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori, a resident of Badambagh in Sopore, has been behind the bars since February 15, 2017, when he was arrested from a graveyard in Sopore town where he had visited to pay tributes to noted freedom leader, Ghulam Muhammad Bulla, on his martyrdom anniversary. Bulla’s death in custody is said to be the first custodial killing in occupied Kashmir.
Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori’s wife, Hafiza Begum said that her husband was being kept behind bars in fabricated cases. He has even charged with making a provocative speech at the funeral of a martyred youth, Qayoom Najar, on September 26, a day on which Sopori was in police station.
“My aged husband has not been released for a minute from detentions since February 2017 but still he was slapped with consecutive PSAs under fake charges prepared by Sopore police against him and now that he was given release order by the High Court on March 20 for the third time, we immediately presented his release order to Kathua Jail authorities on March 23 but he was not released,” Hafiza said.
She said after receiving his release order, the jail authorities shifted him to JIC, Jammu, where he was kept for eight days before he was lodged at Churoo police station on March 31 and then brought to Sopore police station on April 3.
She said, “We expected that police will release him this time but yesterday he was presented in Sopore court, where police in some old case took him on remand again and he is presently kept in Sopore police station”.