A Special Court in Srinagar on Thursday granted bail to Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) Secretary in Syed Sujhaat Bukhari’s assassination case, however officials said he will remain in custody in the ‘Kashmir fight’ blog case, reported.

After hearing prosecution and defence counsel advocate Arzaan Ahmad Dar and Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, the Court of Special Additional and Sessions Judge TADA/POTA Srinagar Manjeet Singh Manhas said that grounds invoked by accused in bail application in FIR number 51/2018 under sections 13,16,18,20 ULAP Act at Police Station Kothibagh makes him entitled to the bail and was accordingly granted bail on conditions imposed on him.

Shujaat Bukhari, 48, the editor-in-chief of Rising Kashmir daily, was killed by militants while he was in his car, having left his Press Colony office just before Iftar in 2018. He was accompanied by two security guards, Abdul Hameed and Mumtaz Ahmad, who were also killed in that attack.

A top official said that special court granted bail to Sofi Akbar in Syed Sujhat Bukhari assassination  case, however he will remain in custody in ‘Kashmirfight’ Blog case under FIR number 82/2020 under sections 13,16,18,20 ULAP Act.

Pertinently, the Jammu and Kashmir police had claimed to have arrested five persons running an online blog site, which ran smear campaigns and prepared a hit list of prominent personalities in Kashmir. 

“The culprits behind the terror and intimidation machinery, kashmirfight.wordpress.com, were arrested in a major breakthrough,” Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar had said in July 2021.

On September 11 this year, the Special Court of TADA/POTA granted bail to advocate Nazish Yasrab Rehmani daughter of Sofi Akbar and Javaid Khalid resident of Poonch and imposed the conditions over them. Both were arrested in the ‘Kashmirfight’ blog case.

The police had said they recovered incriminating digital equipment from five houses raided across the Union Territory (UT).