Arrested on charges of illegally lobbying on behalf of Pakistan’s ISI on Kashmir, separatist Kashmiri leader Ghulam Nabi Fai and his supporters on Wednesday tried to gain political mileage after he was released from detention by a US court and put under house arrest.
Mr. Fai, 62, who lives in Fairfax, Virginia, an affluent suburb of Washington, along with his Chinese wife and his two children, waved his hand to few dozen supporters who attended the court proceedings on Wednesday, as he was being taken out of the court room to the prison by court marshals.
Wearing a green jump suit, with prisoner written in the back, his supporters too waved their hands to Fai as this was a victory for them.
The court ordered that he be released from the prison and instead put under house arrest with electronic surveillance.
This gesture by both Fai and his supporters was objected by the court officials.
As everyone came out of the court room, people started congratulating Mr. Fai’s wife Chang Ning Ying Q. She instantly gave a speech lasting less than a minute, thanking everybody for the support and asking them to join her for dinner.
She said she has full faith in the justice system and then asked people to pray to the god for “justice” to the people of Kashmir.
Outside the court building, his supporters, many of whom had come from New York and his attorney tried to make a messiah out of Mr. Fai.
“This is really a political case,” Mr. Fai’s attorney Khurram Wahid said.
“Just like for many years, Nelson Mandela was seen as an enemy of the State, there were times when political leaders would have courage are seen as enemy of the State,” he said, forcing a journalist to quip: “Surely you are not comparing apartheid government with the United States Government.”
Wahid responded in negative. “But I am comparing Fai to the efforts of Nelson Mandela,” he said.
“That’s a tall one,” a reporter remarked on this.
Happy that the court has accepted Fai’s bail bond, M Tahir, chairman of the Fai Relief Committee, said: “Kashmiri people swill continue to work diplomatically and politically in the whole world, especially in the US to get right of self determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir for which Dr Fai was working for two decades.”
Tahir said this was “deeply shocking” news for the community that Fai was taking money from the ISI for the cause of Kashmir.
