Sitaram Yechury reaches Srinagar, meets ailing colleague Tarigami for three hours

Srinagar: Armed with a Supreme Court order, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday met his ailing party colleague Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami who has been under house arrest since August 5.

Yechury arrived here in the afternoon and was escorted by police to meet Tarigami at his Gupkar Road residence in Srinagar's Civil Lines area.

Officials said the CPI(M) leader spent nearly three hours with Tarigami. Yechury had landed in Srinagar on August 9, too, but was turned away from the airport by the state administration. It was four days after the Centre announced the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected the Centre's contention that Yechury's visit may endanger the situation in the state. "Why do you have any difficulty if a citizen of this country wants to go there and meet his friend and party colleague," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was opposing Yechury's visit.

The apex court made it clear that Yechury was allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir only to meet his party colleague.

Attention was drawn to an interim application seeking the court's orders to bring Tarigami to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, for better medical facilities. The bench said it would be construed a violation of the court order if Yechury was found to be "indulging in any other act of omission and commission".

In accordance with the apex court's direction, Yechury will be filing an affidavit about what transpired in Jammu and Kashmir. Tarigami is among the host of mainstream political leaders detained on the intervening night of August 4 and 5.