Mirwaiz's notice to the government has come a year after J-K's Lt Governor Manoj Sinha said Mirwaiz is not under house arrest and he is free to move anywhere. (Express file)
After the completion of four years in house detention, Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has now sent a legal notice to the government seeking his release and warned of challenging it in the court if it failed to come up with a positive response.
Farooq has been under house detention since August 4, 2019 — a day before the central government abrogated Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and downgraded the state into two union territories.
The legal notice issued to J&K Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta by Mirwaiz’s counsel Nazir Ahmad Ronga reads, “You are therefore, through the medium of this legal notice, requested to lift/remove the restrictions imposed upon the movement of my client through the deployment of large contingent of security forces outside his Nigeen residence as the illegal and unauthorised detention of my client has curtailed his life & liberty guaranteed to him under Article 21 besides you are called upon not to impose restrictions upon my client to participate in religious ceremonies/activities and not to prevent him to preach his religions and to perform his religious duties particularly to participate in congregational prayers on Fridays at Jamia Masjid, Nowhatta, Srinagar.”
It further reads, “If my client finds no prompt and positive response to this legal notice, he shall be constrained and compelled to file the appropriate proceedings or writ in the competent court of jurisdiction which he has a right to do and move for the redressal of his genuine and legitimate grievances and for the protection of his fundamental rights guaranteed particularly under Article 21 and; Articles 25 to 28 of the constitution.”
Mirwaiz’s notice to the government has come a year after J-K’s Lt Governor Manoj Sinha said Mirwaiz is not under house arrest and he is free to move anywhere.
“There was no Public safety Act [PSA] against him (Mirwaiz Umar Farooq) even in 2019. He is not detained. In the past, his father was assassinated unfortunately. We keep security around his house to protect him,” LG Sinha had said in an interview.
“He (Mirwaiz) needs to decide what he wants to do. He is neither under house arrest nor detained,” Sinha had said.
However, the separatist leader, who is also the Mirwaiz (Chief Priest) of Kashmir and delivers Friday sermon at Srinagar’s historic grand mosque, has not been allowed to move out of his house for four years now.
There is anger among the people – especially the followers of Mirwaiz – over the government’s decision to bar him from leading the Friday prayers at the grand mosque. Over the last four years, Mirwaiz has missed more than 200 Friday congregations.
The legal notice issued by Mirwaiz says that he has been detained “illegally and without serving any order of detention” by the government. “The ironical part of the entire scenario is that my client has been detained illegally without serving of any order of detention upon him, he is not allowed to move outside his residence, as a large contingent of police personnel have been deployed therein to curb his movement, he has not been even informed as to why he has been detained nor has any ground of detention been provided to him, the liberty of my client has been curtailed in an arbitrary manner as such,” reads the notice.
It adds, “Therefore, the said illegal and unwarranted detention is against the basic structure of the principles of natural justice embedded under legal maxim audi alteram partem. Thus it has become abundantly clear that my client is being condemned unheard in sheer violation of his fundamental rights”.
The legal notice says that Mirwaiz is a “leading religious figure of JK, a scholar, preacher, particularly Mirwaiz e Kashmir known for his integrity and humanity who preaches the message of peace; love, strengthening of brotherhood and communal harmony”.
It also says that he has been deprived of his personal and religious freedom in violation of his fundamental rights. “It is of paramount importance to highlight the miseries, mental torture and sense of insecurity especially the violation of my client’s religious rights… (He) has been deprived of not only religious rights but his liberty curtailed,” the notice reads.
“My client has been experiencing all this for the last four years incessantly on account of his illegal detention by the state authority. All this has been done in view of events; episodes post abrogation of Article 370; 35A which is violative of Article 21; 25-28 and that requires it to be prevented under law. No attempt should be tolerated to fiddle with the sanctity of law which protects everyone equally as all are equal among equals, but my client is being given different treatment, he is being discriminated against in all respects, he is being deprived of what has been guaranteed to him by law governing the subject,” it adds.
The notice also mentions that Mirwaiz has suffered serious health issues because of the “illegal” detention. “My client suffered an irreparable loss in terms of various and serious health issues which he has been experiencing and confronting since his detention till now, but it seems that it also has no impact on state administration,” the notice further says.
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