The editor and owner of Srinagar-based Urdu daily Aafaq has been arrested in a midnight raid after a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court issued summons in a 28-year-old case.
Ghulam Jeelani Qadri, 62, was arrested at 11.30 p.m. on Monday, when he reached home from his office.
“Mr. Qadri was not allowed to even step inside the house or change his clothes. He would have presented himself before the police in case of any summons. The way the arrest was made shows that the aim was to harass him and his family without any rhyme or reason,” Mr. Qadri’s younger brother Morifat Qadri told The Hindu.
According to the family, the police said he was “absconding” in a case registered in 1992 against eight persons. “All these years, Mr. Qadri has been going to his office on a daily basis. How can he be shown as an absconder? Besides, two journalists, who faced similar charges in the case, have won State awards and become legislators,” said Mr. Morifat Qadri.
He is likely to be produced in court on Tuesday. Several journalists and scribes on Tuesday assembled on the court premises to register their solidarity with the editor.
A case was registered during a ban on the circulation of newspapers in Kashmir in 1992, at the peak of militancy. Mr. Qadri’s news agency, J&K News, had then distributed news and press releases issued by militant outfits.
Three others accused in the case, Khawaja Sanaullah, Ghulam Ahmad Sofi and Shaban Vakil, all editors of top Urdu dailies, have since died.