Separatist leader Masarat Alam (44), who was arrested after his supporters unfurled Pakistani flags in a rally in April this year, was briefly released on Tuesday forenoon from a Jammu jail and re-arrested.
Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League spokesman Mohammed Rafiq Ganai said, “He (Alam) was released when a copy of the High Court order was shown to the jail authorities. As he was within the jail premises, a few policemen in civvies, present inside the jail, re-arrested him.”
Alam was lodged in Jammu’s Kot Balwal jail immediately after he was detained on April 17 this year, just two days after his supporters raised pro-Pakistan slogans and unfurled Pakistani flags in Srinagar during a welcome rally organised for Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani. Alam, who is facing 27 cases, was booked under the Public Safety Act.
The newly-formed PDP-BJP alliance government came under fire from political opponents for allowing Pakistan flags to go up in Srinagar.
Alam’s brief release came in the wake of the High Court’s direction last month where it quashed the Public Safety Act (PSA) slapped in April.
The court, while quashing the detention orders, had observed: “It (the repeated PSA) violates fundamental principle of Criminal Jurisprudence providing for presumption of innocence of accused till he is proved guilty on fair and transparent trail.”
Alam is facing charges of “sedition” and “waging war against the state.”
