The Editor of The Kashmiriyat, Qazi Shibli, has been under ‘preventive detention’ for the past 12 days. Qazi was summoned by Cyber Police for questioning on 31st July and has been under detention since.
On 3rd August, Qazi was shifted from Sher Ghari Police station to Central Jail, Srinagar, and booked under 107 CrPc, a law permitting the Police to arrest anyone based on ‘suspicion’.
With the Central Jail, Srinagar, becoming an epicenter of COVID-19 cases in Kashmir, The Kashmiriyat team is apprehensive about our Editor’s health.
The Central Jail authorities have reported 35 fresh COVID-19 positives cases, including three doctors and thirty-three inmates. The Central Jail, located at Kathi Darwaza in Rainawari, Srinagar, has been overcrowded from the past year with over 510 inmates lodged in the facility that can officially accommodate only 360 of them.
The overcrowding of inmates in Central Jail, Srinagar, began when the government arrested more than 1500 activists, journalists, civilians after the revocation of Article 370 last year.
There has been global condemnation of Qazi Shibli’s arrest. Amnesty India, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), The Committee to Protect Journalists, Asia, The International Observatory of Human Rights, The International Federation of Journalism (IFJ), and Indian Journalists Union (IJU) condemned Qazi’s arrest and demanded his immediate release.
It is pertinent to mention here that Qazi Shibli was arrested last year on July 25th and booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) for publishing news about heavy deployment of security forces in Kashmir before August 5. He was shifted to Bareilly Jail and released after 9 months on April 13, this year.