J&K parties back Engineer Rashid over bail to visit ailing father | India News
SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir parties on Saturday rallied behind engineer Rashid and urged authorities to temporarily release him on humanitarian grounds, a day after an NIA court in Delhi rejected the jailed Baramulla MP’s bail plea to meet his critically ill father.“I may have a million differences with Engineer Rashid. We fight each other politically. But he deserves to meet his terminally ill father. It’s his right,” People’s Conference chairman Sajad Lone said.Rashid’s son Abrar said his grandfather Khazeer Mohammad was on ventilator support in the ICU of SMHS hospital in Srinagar. “Granting short-term bail will not weaken the system, it will show balance and the law is not blind to human suffering. A man who spent years in Tihar Jail wanted to spend his last moments with his father. It’s painful to even see it denied. I hope compassion finds space in this critical situation. Some moments once lost cannot be brought back,” said Abrar.Rashid, imprisoned in Tihar since 2019, faces charges under the UAPA in the 2017 terror funding case investigated by the NIA.Governing National Conference (NC) MP Chowdhury Mohammad Ramzan appealed to the Center to “consider Rashid’s release on humanitarian grounds”.Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) hoped for “fairness and compassion” from the Delhi High Court, where the MP’s regular bail plea will come up on April 27. The AIP expressed deep concern over the denial of interim relief and urged the authorities to consider Rashid’s position as the sitting MP from Baramulla, which has close to 4% of Kashmir’s assembly. populationEarlier this year, Rashid was granted custodial parole to attend the budget session of Parliament. He won the 2024 LS election in Baramulla by defeating NC’s Omar Abdullah by over 2 lakh votes. Omar won J&K’s assembly elections and became Chief Minister later that year.
