Delhi HC grants interim bail to Sheikh Abdul Rashid for father’s rituals

The Delhi High Court granted interim bail to Sheikh Abdul Rashid from June 25 to 30 to attend his father’s post-death rituals in Srinagar. The Baramulla MP, jailed in a terror-funding case, must surrender on June 2 after his current bail period ends

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted interim bail from June 25 to June 30 to jailed Baramulla MP Sheikh Abdul Rashid alias Engineer Rashid to enable him to attend his father’s post death rituals.

A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Madhu Jain, however, asked Rashid to surrender on June 2 after the expiry of the interim bail granted to him on May 18 to attend his father’s last rites.

---

Rashid’s senior counsel urged the court to extend the interim bail given to the parliamentarian, who is facing terror-funding charges, to enable him to attend certain ceremonies to be observed in Srinagar on the 40th day of his father’s burial.

“After the interim bail (granted on May 18) expires on June 2, the appellant shall surrender. However, for the period from June 25 to June 30, interim bail is again granted in order to enable the appellant to participate in the rites and ceremonies on the 40th day,” the court ordered.

The court stated that the interim bail from June 25-30 will have the same conditions as Rashid’s current release period.

On May 18, the bench had imposed several conditions on Rashid for the duration of his interim bail, including that he shall always be accompanied by at least two police officials in plainclothes, who shall remain with him from the beginning of the journey from Tihar Jail until his return from Srinagar.

He shall be permitted to visit the burial ground or any other place of worship, but shall not be permitted to move anywhere else from his residence, it had said.

On April 28, the court had granted him one-week interim bail to enable him to meet his ailing father in Srinagar. The period was subsequently extended till May 10 after Rashid’s father was shifted to AIIMS here for treatment.

Rashid is facing trial in the terror-funding case. He faces allegations that he funded separatists and terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir. He has been lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2019 after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him in the 2017 case.

After he was named in a chargesheet in October 2019, a special NIA court framed charges against Rashid and others in March 2022 under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging war against the government), and 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code and under relevant provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.