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The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has allowed two MPs of the National Conference to meet ailing party chief Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, but barred them from briefing the media about their meetings or deliberations with the duo.

The High Court’s order came on a petition filed by NC MPs Hasnain Masoodi from Anantnag and Akbar Lone from Baramulla. They had sought permission from the court to meet Farooq and Omar, alleging that the party’stop leadership had not been allowed to meet anyone.

The HC order came as most of the top politicians have beentaken into preventive custody including three former CMs — Farooq Abdullah,Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. While Omar and Mufti have been placed underdetention, Farooq has been living at his Srinagar residence but alleged that hewas under house arrest.

Farooq is a Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar. He even missed theParliament session last month when the Modi government moved a resolution toscrap the state’s special status and bifurcate it into two Union Territories.The Centre has, however, said that Farooq was neither detained nor placed underhouse arrest and he was free to go outside his residence.While Omar has beenplaced under detention at Hari Niwas Place, Mufti is under detention atChashmashahi Resort in Srinagar.“…the petitioners shall ensure that theirmeeting with their party president and vice-president is restricted to acourtesy call and to know about the well-being of the aforesaid two persons…the petitioners, after meeting their party president and vice-president, shallnot go to press/ media regarding their meeting and deliberations with theaforesaid persons,” the single-judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar said in theorder and directed Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar to take immediate steps tofacilitate the meeting, preferably this week itself.

The government told the court that there was no “formal”restriction in place on meeting the politicians. It said that theadministration was not averse to such meetings, but they should not “doanything aimed at vitiating the peaceful atmosphere”.Earlier this week, MDMKleader Vaiko had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court seekingdirections be given to the Centre and the state administration to produceFarooq Abdullah before the court as he was unable to contact his friend.Earlierthis month, a report in The Indian Express said that Omar and Mufti wererecently allowed to meet their family members twice.


Publish Time: 13 September 2019
TP News

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