Demanding Engineer Rashid’s release, Awami Ittehad Party workers detained in Srinagar

Top leaders and several workers of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) were detained as they tried to stage a sit-in at Srinagar in solidarity with Baramulla Lok Sabha MP and party chief Sheikh Abdul Rashid, alias Engineer Rashid, who began his hunger strike in Tihar jail on Friday. AIP members were demanding release of Engineer Rashid.

Engineer Rashid had announced an indefinite hunger strike alleging that he was being denied the right to represent his constituency in the Parliament as he hasn’t got bail so far, his party informed.

AIP chief spokesperson Inam un Nabi said the protesters assembled at the Sangarmal Shopping Complex, where they had decided to hold the hunger strike after the district authorities rejected the party’s application for a sit-in near Pratap Park in the Lal Chowk area of the city. “Police arrested dozens of our workers, including MP’s son Abrar Rashid, and detained them at Kothibagh police station. They don’t even allow us to hold peaceful protest,” he said.

Before being taken away, Abrar told reporters that not allowing his father to attend the Parliament session was murder of democracy. “He has been jailed for five-and-a-half years and he is not allowed to attend Parliament. This is a murder of democracy,” he said.

Peoples Conference chairman Sajjad Lone condemned the detention of AIP leaders. “Peaceful dissent is a right not charity. Irrespective of our political differences with AIP, we defend their right to protest. They have not been allowed to hold a peaceful protest. J&K has a history of muzzling civilian peaceful dissent. And that proved very costly. Let us hope we learn from the mistakes of the past and create a dignified space for peaceful dissent or protest,” Sajjad Lone wrote on X.

Rashid was elected to Lok Sabha from Baramulla constituency last year, defeating Omar Abdullah, now the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and People’s Conference president Sajad Gani Lone. He has been lodged in Tihar Jail since 2019 after the NIA arrested him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the 2017 terror-funding case.

The ED filed a money laundering case against the accused persons on the basis of the NIA’s FIR, which accused them of “conspiring to wage war against the government” and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir valley.

Cases of the NIA and the ED also involve Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba chief and 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin and others.