kashmiri-phd-scholar-granted-bail-after-three-years-in-sedition-case

A Kashmiri PhD scholar, Abdul Aala Fazili from Srinagar, was granted bail nearly three years following his arrest in 2022 for his alleged “seditious” article in 2011.

 

Fazili had written an article titled ‘Shackles of Slavery Will Break,’ published in the online magazine Kashmir Walla. 

 

Fazili, along with the magazine’s editor, Fahad Shah, was immediately arrested by the State Investigation Agency (SIA) over sedition charges.

 

The 3rd Additional Sessions Judge (designated court under TADA/POTA/UAPA cases) in Jammu, while granting Fazili bail, noted that the applicant had been in custody for nearly two years and nine months.

 

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The judge ruled that the evidence linking Fazili to the authorship was weak. “If the applicant, due to weak evidence, is acquitted at the end of the trial, his period of incarceration would not be compensable by any means,” the court said.

 

The court also observed that in this particular case, the accused should be released on bail at the stage of the trial.

 

Sources confirmed that Fazili, who had been detained in the Jammu region, has now been released and is back home in the Valley.

 

The SIA claimed that Fazili’s article was “highly provocative, seditious and intended to create unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.”

 

He was also accused of glorifying terrorism and attempting to incite the youth to engage in violence.

 

However, the court’s order refuted these claims and said there was no incitement of violence or terrorism within the article.

 

Additionally, the court also pointed out the then government’s approach, which had not acted upon the article for a decade, from its publication in 2011 until the FIR was registered in 2022.

 

This delay, the court noted, suggested that the article had not aggravated law and order or militancy-related issues.

 

The court also ruled that Fazili had no prior criminal record and therefore granted the bail in his favour.

 

It further remarked that his co-accused, who allegedly published the article, had already been granted bail.

 

The court noted that both Fazili and his co-accused played similar roles in the publication of the article, which would have been ineffective had it not been published.

 

Meanwhile, before the verdict, the J&K High Court had affirmed that the article did not undermine the state’s authority or promote acts of violence.