Kashmiri poet gets bail relief

The high court of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has granted bail to renowned poet Ahmed Farhad Shah, who had gone missing allegedly from Islamabad but was later found to be detained at a police station of AJK’s Bagh district.

Hearing the poet’s bail application, AJK High Court Chief Justice Sadaqat Hussain Raja on Friday ordered Shah to be released after furnishing a bail bond of Rs200,000 and a personal bond in the like amount.

Last week, an AJK anti-terrorism court had rejected Shah’s bail plea, holding that the legal points advanced by his counsel did not apply to the case.

The poet had gone missing from his Islamabad residence on May 15 but had surprisingly re-surfaced in Gujjar Kohala, a village near the AJK border with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on May 29 when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) was hearing a petition seeking his recovery.

Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Awan had then told the IHC that Shah had been arrested under Section 186 of the Azad Penal Code (APC) and was kept at the Dhirkot police station of Bagh district.