Srinagar, Apr 21: Terming the recent strike of the state government employees as just and legal, the High Court Bar Association Wednesday assured legal support to the employees.
 “The movement started by the employees was just and legal. Bar extends its complete support to the employees’ movement based on their genuine demands,” the Bar President, Mian Abdul Qayoom, said while addressing a general body meeting here.
 He also clarified that the two lawyers who filed the PIL against the employees’ strike, had nothing to do with the Bar and it was their individual decision.
 “Instead of considering the genuine demands of the employees, the government pressurized them to end the strike,” he said. Castigating the government’s move, the Bar assured the employees that it would support their ‘righteous movement’ till they accomplish their goals.
 The Bar members reached a consensus that a strategy needs to be evolved to expose the ‘tactics and strategies adopted by the government to subjugate and target the innocent Kashmiri people.’
 “Bar will take into confidence all human rights organizations and Bar associations of the state soon to devise a strategy against the coercion and suppression by Indian forces on innocent Kashmiri people,” Qayoom said.
 The meeting also deliberated upon the repeated detention of several prominent Hurriyat leaders under Public Safety Act even after the High Court quashed their detention. Qayoom said government had “made mockery of judiciary.”
 “The repeated quashing of the detention of Shabir Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Massarat Alam Bhat, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, Ghulam Nabi Sumji, Muhammad Yousuf Mir, Bilal Siddiqui, General Moosa, Firdous Ahmad Shah and several other prominent separatist leaders epitomizes the government’s disregard towards the judiciary,” he said, adding that the “puppet government” has ensured the leaders’ repeated detention by framing them under same grounds of detention and slapping fresh PSAs against them.
 Commenting over Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s recent statement that blood of Kashmiris was not cheap, Qayoom said, “On one hand government claims that the blood of Kashmiris is not cheap and expresses its intolerance towards human rights violations while on the other the forces make strategies in the Unified Command meetings aimed at decimating the Kashmiri people.” He termed the CM’s statement as mere eyewash.
 The other lawyers who participated in the meeting included the Bar Vice-president Aijaz Bedar, General Secretary G N Shaheen, Joint Secretary Fayaz Qureshi, Muhammad Amin Bhat, Altaf Haqqani, Mir Shafqat Hussain, Rafiq Joo, Syed Manzoor, Zaffar Qureshi, Manzoor Dar, Iqbal Dar, Arshad Andrabi, Parvez Zargar, Naved Ahmad Mir, Javed Ahmad and Riyaz Khan.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST