Amid peace overtures by a section of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), the J&K police have re-arrested a key figure of the banned socio-religious group, advocate Zahid Ali, on May 16, according to family members.
Mr. Ali’s family said that the Rainawari police station in Srinagar had “asked him to present himself” on May 16. “He was later arrested in a 2019 case related to the Central Jail, Srinagar,” the family said. He had been released on May 2 by the J&K High Court.
Mr. Ali has served as a JeI spokesman in the past. The Ministry of Home Affairs banned the JeI in 2019. Mr. Ali’s re-arrest comes in the wake of an ex-senior JeI leader Ghulam Qadir Wani from Pulwama “offering to participate in the elections if the Centre lifts the ban”. Mr. Qadir was also seen voting in the Srinagar Lok Sabha election recently.
The Centre has not formally responded to Mr. Wani’s utterances. However, local leaders, including the BJP, National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party, have all welcomed Mr. Qadir’s statement. The banned JeI has neither formally accepted nor distanced itself from Mr. Wani’s statement.
‘Illegal detention’
Mr. Ali has been in and out of jail since 2019. He was detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA) on September 15, 2022. After about 20 months, the High Court declared his detention “illegal” and awarded a compensation of ₹5 lakh in his favour.
According to the family, Mr. Ali was in jail between 2019 and 2024 and was released three times by the court. “The police never informed him or his family about his involvement in this particular case, which is totally fake as he had no role at all in the incident. He is totally innocent and has been deliberately implicated in the case simply in order to prolong my detention,” according to a statement issued through the family.
The family added that he was “never called for any interrogation or investigation regarding this case to clear his position”.
‘Cyclic preventive detentions’
Mr. Ali was released on May 2, 2024 after the J&K High Court passed a strongly worded order in his favour. “This court cannot be diplomatic to avoid observing that if left to the whims and fancies of the SSP Pulwama and District Magistrate, Pulwama then the judgment of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh quashing a given preventive detention of a person is of no interest to them and same very person by repeat of the pretext can be made to suffer cyclic preventive detentions to outnumber judgments quashing the given preventive detention,” the High Court observed on May 2.
The court held that the SSP Pulwama and the District Magistrate, Pulwama, “in continuing with the preventive detention of the petitioner meant to be law unto themselves having extra constitutional authority at their respective disposal in the matter of targeting the petitioner with repeated preventive detention custody unmindful of fact that each time failing to sustain the said preventive detention custody before the court of law.”
