New Delhi, Jun 18: Engineer Rashid, who won the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir, will continue to stay in Delhi’s Tihar Jail as an NIA court rejected his interim bail plea in connection with a terror funding case, his lawyers said on Tuesday.
Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, contested the election as an Independent candidate and defeated National Conference leader and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah from Baramulla.
Rashid was arrested in 2016 in a Jammu and Kashmir terror funding case. He was seeking interim bail to take oath as an MP.
Engineer Rashid has been in jail since 2019 after he was charged by the National Investigation Agency under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention), 1967 Act (UAPA) in the alleged terror funding case. He is lodged in Tihar jail at present.
Rashid’s name cropped up during the investigation of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who the NIA had arrested for allegedly funding terrorist groups and separatists in the valley.
The NIA had filed a charge sheet against several individuals, including Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, in the case.
Malik was awarded life imprisonment by a trial court in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to the charges.
Source (India Today)
