Journalist Qazi Shibli booked under CRPC 107; shifted to Central Jail Srinagar

4th August 2020 ANN News

Srinagar: South Kashmir based editor and journalist Qazi Shibli has been booked under 107 CRPC, a law that allows pre-emptive detention of a person based on suspicion, and shifted to Srinagar Central Jail on Monday, reported a local newspaper.

Last Thursday, Mr. Shibli was summoned by the police and remains under detention since Friday, a day before Eid. The Kashmiriyat, the news portal where Mr. Shibli works, had condemned his detention in a statement.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Srinagar, Dr. Haseeb Mughal told the Kashmir Monitor that Mr. Shibli was detained under 107 CRPC (security for keeping the peace in other cases) and shifted to Srinagar Central Jail.

Superintendent of Police, Central Jail Srinagar, Tej Ram Katoch, informed that Mr. Shibli was brought to the jail on Monday. “He has been placed in a separate cell as is the norm with any new inmate. We receive them only after they are confirmed COVID negative and then we place then in isolation for 12 days,” the Jail superintendent told the newspaper.

Mr. Shibli was recently released in April 2020 after nine-month under detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA). He was lodged in a jail in Uttar Pradesh. He was detained by Kashmir police a day after he had tweeted information about the deployment of additional troops in Jammu and Kashmir in the last week of July 2019. On 5 August 2019, the Government of India revoked J-K’ special status and clamped down.

Most of the 6,000-odd people who were detained in Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August last year were held under Section 107.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), meanwhile, has demanded that Mr. Shibli be immediately released.

“Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir must immediately release Qazi Shibli and allow him to return home,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Indian authorities must end their harassment of journalists and allow them to do their jobs without interference.”