Lawyers for Afzal Guru’s family quit

Two lawyers representing Afzal Guru’s family on Wednesday withdrew as their counsel saying “the matter is not restricted to the family anymore as there are many issues involved now” and “we want to avoid any controversy in the future”. The decision came a day after approaching the Tihar Jail authorities for handing Afzal’s body to his family. The lawyers, N.D. Pancholi and Nandita Haksar, withdrew as their counsel citing “unseemly controversies” and “suspicion” by certain political groups in Kashmir. Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Pancholi said, “We were under no pressure to quit but we have decided to withdraw because the case has now become highly-controversial. However, we will continue to support and guide Afzal’s family as human right activists.” Mr Pancholi and Ms Haskar on Tuesday had sent a letter to Tihar director general Vimla Mehra on behalf of Guru’s family in which they demanded handing over his body to them, besides seeking his belongings. Replying to criticism that why they did not represent Guru at the time of his trial, Ms Haksar and Mr Pancholi said they were never approached to fight the legal battle.

*** Dailies resume publication in srinagar age CORRESPONDENT SRINAGAR, Feb. 13

Several Srinagar dailies resumed publications on Wednesday after remaining shut for three days following informal gag order from the district administration. However, chief minister Omar Abdullah denied any such official ban was in place. He tweeted, “There is no ban on newspapers in Kashmir. Papers are choosing not to print because restrictions make delivery of newspapers impossible.” He asked, “If there was a ban then it would have extended to their Internet editions as well which are regularly being updated.” However, the chief minister was silent on the cable operators having been asked by the police verbally at the weekend not to beam any of the national or international news channels through their network. Also, Internet services were curtailed in the Valley and some of the services providers such as Reliance continue to be snapped. It was only BSNL’s Boadband that worked smoothly unlike its own GRP services.

On Sunday, a day after Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, was sent to the gallows in Tihar jail, the police here has confiscated the copies of various Srinagar newspapers the moment they were sent out of their respective printing presses. It was later during that day that the newspapers were issued an unwritten diktat to suspend their publications for three days. As the restrictions evoked widespread criticism within Jammu and Kashmir and outside it, the print media organisations here were contacted by the concerned authorities on Tuesday afternoon to say they could resume their publications. “It was in difficult conditions that the online editions were updated for subscribers worldwide,” reported mass circulated Greater Kashmir. New Delhi-based television networks ran special programmes on Tuesday evening on media gag in Kashmir. It was for the third time in past five years that local newspapers were forced to suspend their publications.