Ex-Gen Secy of J&K HC Bar Association Mohd Ashraf Bhat arrested

Srinagar, July 18 (IANS) Former general secretary of the J&K Bar Association, Muhammad Ashraf Bhat has been arrested in J&K’s Srinagar city.

He was arrested late Wednesday night from his uptown Rawalpora residence in Srinagar, said sources here.

“He has been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA) and shifted to a jail in Kathua district in Jammu,” the sources added.

Bhat is the former general secretary of the J&K Bar Association.

He is the third senior advocate to be arrested by police in Kashmir.

Earlier, senior advocates, Mian Qayoom and Nazir Ahmad Ronga were arrested. Both were booked under the PSA by the authorities.

Mian Qayoom was arrested during the investigation of the murder case of advocate Babar Qadri who was killed by terrorists in his Hawal area residence in Srinagar city on September 2, 2020. Qadri was popular in television debates and often mentioned that Mian Qayoom was planning his murder.

Qadri had been critical of Qayoom’s functioning as the Bar Association president and would criticise him on social media platforms.

A reward of Rs 10 lakh was announced by the SIA in 2023 to gather information about the killers of the 40-year-old lawyer. Earlier in 2021, the J&K Police claimed that Saqib Manzoor, a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, was involved in the killing of Qadri. Manzoor was killed during an encounter in Srinagar along with another militant commander.

In 2022, the police raided the houses of three lawyers in Srinagar in the case, including the residence of Mian Qayoom in Srinagar’s Barzulla area. The police had also zeroed in on five locals, including two jail inmates, in Srinagar in the case.