Country facing terrorism but J&K population cannot be confined: Azad

New Delhi: Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that he accepts the country is facing the problem of terrorism but it does not mean that the government can paralyse the lives of 7 million people of Jammu and Kashmir by imposing restrictions post the abrogation of Article 370.

He said the government claims that prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC have been withdrawn from all police stations in Jammu and Kashmir but there are no such withdrawal orders in public domain.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, R Subhash Reddy and B R Gavai reserved its verdict on pleas filed by Azad and Kashmir Times Editor Anuradha Bhasin challenging the curbs imposed in the erstwhile state. The top court observed that it needs to create a balance between the rights of citizens and the national security of the state. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Azad said that the statistics submitted by the state administration to claim return of normalcy was far from the ground reality and the top court has to decide the validity of the restrictions on the basis of legal principles.

"This country is facing the problem of terrorism. No one can deny this fact. We have to deal with this situation together. But, this does not mean that you can paralyse entire seven million people of the state," he said.

Referring to prohibitory orders, Sibal said that nowhere it has been stated in the orders of magistrate that restrictions have been imposed on the ground of national security.

"Not a single order of magistrate on section 144 said that the restrictions are being imposed on account of national security. No where it is reflected in the orders nor it relies

on the statistics. The section 144

order only speaks of law and order situation," he said,

while contradicting the arguments.