Jammu
The lawyers for the three Kashmiri students, arrested under ‘sedition’ charges in Karnataka, have filed a petition for their bail under police protection.
Three students, Basit Aashiq Sofi, Talib Majeed and Amir Mohiuddin Wani, from Shopian district of occupied Kashmir, studying at a private engineering college in Hubali, were arrested on February 15 on sedition charges for raising pro-Pakistan slogans and posting a video of it on a messaging platform.
Earlier, on February 24, the lawyers had failed to file the bail plea due to protests by local lawyers in Dharwad. The Karnataka High Court had subsequently warned that attempts to stop the filing of their bail plea would be treated as contempt of court.
“The petition has been filed and it has been taken on record and the matter has been posted for hearing on March 2,” said senior advocate B T Venkatesh who moved the high court along with 23 other advocates after the Hubali Bar Association passed a resolution on February 15 opposing legal representation for the Kashmiri students.
The Indian government has granted sanction to Delhi police to prosecute former President of Delhi’s Jawaharlal University Students’ Union (JNUSU), Kanhaiya Kumar, and others in the 2016 sedition case.
On February 09, 2016, some students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, held a protest in the campus against the execution of prominent Kashmiri liberation leaders, Muhammad Maqbool Butt and Muhammad Afzal Guru. The organizers of the event were former members of the Democratic Students Union (DSU). Four days after the event, JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by the Delhi police and charged with sedition.
A senior police officer told media that they had received the sanction from the Delhi government to prosecute Kanhaiya Kumar and others in the sedition case.
The Delhi Police Special Cell on February 19 wrote to the Delhi Home Secretary requesting to expedite the process of grant of sanction in the JNU sedition case against Kanhaiya Kumar and others.—KMS
