Government relying on ‘copy-paste’ arguments to oppose bail in UAPA cases: Jammu and Kashmir HC
‘Beware of the words ‘internal security,’ for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor,’ the bench said in its order, quoting the French writer Voltaire.
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The government is relying on “copy-paste” arguments to oppose bail to persons charged with offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, often without providing any evidence of their guilt, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court said on May 19, reported Bar and Bench.
A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Mohammad Yousuf Wani made the remarks in the bail order of Khursheed Ahmad Lone, who has been accused under the anti-terrorism law of “influencing youngsters to take to the path of terrorism and wage a war against the Union of India”.
The respondent in the case is the government of the Union territory through the Anantnag Police Station, which operates under the home department.
Lone was first arrested in April 2013 and booked under the Public Safety Act, reported The Indian Express. He was initially placed under preventive detention but released in October 2013.
Lone was arrested again in October 2022.
“Beware of the words ‘internal security,’ for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor,” the bench said in Lone’s May 19 bail order, quoting the French writer Voltaire.
Sreedharan said that the government in anti-terrorism cases is often found relying on arguments such as “national security, radical Islamism and allegiance to Pakistan [of the accused], radical Islam – Islamist and Islamism [as the influence on the...
