Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police today detained several workers of jailed Member of Parliament (MP) Sheikh Abdul Rashid aka Engineer Rashid’s Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) before their scheduled hunger strike in solidarity with their president.
AIP workers on Friday morning tried to assemble at the Sangarmal Shopping Complex near the business hub Lalchowk here to hold a hunger strike to demand the release of the party chief, but they were detained by the police, AIP spokesperson Firdous Baba said.
The cops, who were waiting at the new venue, bundled the AIP workers, including Rashid's son Abrar, into vehicles and detained them at Kothibagh Police Station.
On Thursday, the party announced that its jailed president, Engineer Rashid, who is an MP from the Baramulla parliamentary seat, will begin a hunger strike for being denied to attend the upcoming budget session of Parliament.
Before being taken away, Abrar told reporters that not allowing his father to attend the Parliament session was a murder of democracy. "He has been jailed for five and a half years, and he is not allowed to attend Parliament. This is a murder of democracy," he said.
Rashid has been jailed in New Delhi's Tihar jail since August 2019 for alleged terror funding and money laundering charges. He was released on interim bail during the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections in August last year for a month and was jailed again after his bail period ended.
Rashid contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Tihar jail and defeated the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and Peoples Conference president Sajad Gani Lone by a huge margin of over 2 lakh votes. (with inputs from PTI)
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