Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 11: Senior Advocate and former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association president, Nazir Ahmad Ronga was today arrested from his Srinagar residence and booked under the Public Safety Act.
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Ronga was arrested from his residence in the Nishat area of the city and booked under the PSA.
Ronga’s family took to social media and said he was arrested at 1.10 am. He is the second ex-president of the lawyers’ body to be arrested.
“My father, Adv. N.A. Ronga, the Chairman of the J&K High Court Bar Association, has just been arrested in a deeply disturbing turn of events,” Umair Ronga, son of the senior lawyer, posted on X.
“At 1.10 am, a contingent of J&K Police arrived at our home without any arrest warrant, merely stating, ‘It’s an order from above’ (“uper se order hai”). We are left in a state of shock and profound distress. We can only hope this is not another instance of the PSA being misused to intimidate the members of the J&K High Court Bar Association,” Umair Ronga said.
Ronga was earlier arrested in Aug 2019 and booked under PSA ahead of abrogation of Article 370.
Ronga’s detention comes days after the administration banned the HCBA election due to take place on July 1 by citing unspecified fears of a “breach of peace”. Many lawyers believe that the ban and the ongoing crackdown on HCBA’s office-bearers was part of a wider attack on the lawyers’ body, which advocates “peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue”.
In its ban order on June 25, Srinagar district administration had also raised questions about the HCBA’s credentials as a legal entity under the Advocates Act, 1961, referring to a letter by Kashmir Advocates Association (KAA), a parallel lawyers’ body that had accused the HCBA of propagating “secessionist ideology” in Jammu and Kashmir.
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