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Kashmir Walla editor Fahad Shah released
Shah was released from Kot Balwal jail in Jammu after being incarcerated for 21 months and has reached home in Kashmir, his legal team said on Thursday
The Kashmir Walla magazine’s editor Fahad Shah, who was granted bail by the high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on November 17, was released on Wednesday.
Shah was released from Kot Balwal jail in Jammu after being incarcerated for 21 months and has reached home in Kashmir, his legal team said on Thursday.
The state investigation agency (SIA) of J&K police had taken custody of Shah in May 2022 into the investigation of an FIR registered at the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), in Jammu, in connection with the publication of an alleged “seditious” article in the now defunct magazine in 2011. The article was allegedly written by a Kashmiri University scholar Abdul Aala Fazili. Shah was booked under the UAPA.
Shah, 34, was arrested on February 4, 2022 by Pulwama police for allegedly glorifying terrorism and “sedition” after running a story on an encounter.
Last week, the court quashed some of the charges against the journalist, including Section 18 (terror conspiracy) and Section 121 (waging war against the country) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and Section 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) of the Indian Penal Code.
