Rubaiya case: CBI plea to HC to shift proceedings to Jammu

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 7

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has moved an application before the High Court seeking the vacation of the stay on trial and shifting the proceedings to Jammu in the 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed’s kidnapping case, in which JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik and 10 others, including Javaid Ahmad Mir and Showkat Bakshi, are accused.

The application was moved by the CBI through its standing counsel before the Jammu wing of the High Court. It has now been listed on March 11 in the Srinagar wing of the High Court by the Chief Justice, who has given the other side two days to file its objections.

Acting on a writ petition filed in Srinagar, the HC, had in 2009, stayed the trial against Malik and others in the Rubaiya Sayeed case before a Tada court in Jammu, where earlier the challan was produced by the investigating agency.

“In the application we have prayed that the writ petition in which the stay was granted on the trial of the case be shifted to Jammu,” Assistant Solicitor General, Union of India who represented the CBI before the HC told The Tribune.

He further saidthe application had been listed before the Srinagar wing of the High Court next week on Monday, March 11, with directions to the accused to file their objections within two days.

On December 8, 1989, Rubaiya, daughter of Mufti Sayeed, thenHome Ministerin the VP Singh government, was kidnapped for five days from Srinagar’s Lal Ded Hospital. The kidnappers had demanded the release of 13 militants in exchange for Rubaiya’s release.

In 1999, three JKLF members Showkat Ahmed Bakshi, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi and Mohammad Iqbal Gandroo were granted bail after nine years in the case.