Key Takeaways
- The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association has been denied permission to hold elections for the past five years.
- Four senior Kashmir advocates have been arrested recently, including Mohammad Ashraf Bhat.
- The arrests have come in the backdrop of the Bar announcing its decision to hold Bar Association elections.
Srinagar, July 18 (UNI) Mohammad Ashraf Bhat, senior Kashmiri lawyer and former general secretary of Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association, has been arrested and booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), officials said on Thursday.
They said Bhat was arrested by the J&K Police on Tuesday night and lodged in a jail in Kathua in the Jammu region.
Bhat is the fourth senior Kashmir advocate who has been arrested in recent past.
Incidentally, these arrests have come in the backdrop of the Bar announcing its decision to hold Bar Association elections. The Bar has been denied permission by the government to hold elections for the past five years, accused it of “pro-secessionist ideology.”
Earlier, former Presidents of Bar Association Mian Qayoom and Nazir Ronga, besides Qayoom’s nephew advocate Mian Muzaffar were arrested.
While Mian Qayoom was arrested last month in connection with the murder of Advocate Babar Qadri in 2020, the other two lawyers Ronga and Muzaffar were booked under the PSA- which allows detention without charge or trial up to six months, and makes bail difficult to obtain.
There is no official word from the government over the arrests of senior lawyers.
