Srinagar, May 12: A local court Saturday granted bail to 14 persons including seven women who were arrested by the sleuths of Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) at Panthachowk here on April 29 for crossing Indo-Nepal border illegally.
 Court of Sub judge Passenger Tax  Srinagar, Massarat Shaheen after hearing  arguments on the application granted bail to all the accused. 
 According to CIK report 16 persons had crossed over to Pakistan several years ago and had married there. The report suggested that they were on way back to Kashmir after they had crossed the Indo-Nepal Border illegally. 
 It added that the accused were arrested with their 22 children by the sleuths of CIK, however no FIR was registered against the children.
 Men were arrested under section 2/3 of  Egress and Internal Movement Control ordinance ( EIMCO), women were booked under section 14 of the Foreigners’ Act.
 The accused were represented in the court by counsels, Irshad Muneer Andrabi, Tansif Mushtaq and Aamir Hakeem while public prosecutor Mujeeb Nahvi defended the state.
 Counsels on behalf of the accused argued that EIMCO is obsolete now and cannot be slapped against the accused.
 They told the court that lenient view should be taken in granting bail to the accused as efforts are already afoot at diplomatic levels to rehabilitate those who have crossed to Pakistan.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 IST