Kashmiri students accused in sedition case in Karnataka’s Huballi denied bail

Srinagar: A local court in Karnataka’s Hubballi on Monday denied bail to three engineering students from Kashmir who have been charged with sedition last month.

Talib Majid Wani, Amir Mohiuddin Wahi and Basit Asif Sofi’s plea for bail was rejected by judge KN Gangadhar of the fifth additional district and sessions court in Hubbali.

The students of civil engineering at the KLE Institute of Technology in Hubbali, about 400km north of Bengaluru, were arrested last month after an alleged video of them shouting pro-Pakistan slogans had gone viral on various social media platforms.

The students, said to be from Shopian in Kashmir, had been arrested and released on February 15 after they had executed a bond under section 169 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

But after a public outcry including agitations by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student organisation affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as well as Sri Rama Sene, they were rearrested on February 17 under Section 124(A).

The bar association of the city had passed a resolution, saying that none of its members would represent the accused and when some lawyers from Bengaluru turned up under Karnataka High Court’s protection, they were heckled on court premises.

They were suspended from the college.

Karnataka’s home minister Basavaraj Bommai had defended the police action against the civil engineering students. “Any anti-national will have to face the law,” the minister had said.