Kashmiri journalist arrested two days after being released

: Two days after Kashmiri journalist Asif Sultan was released from a five-year detention, he has been rearrested here in another case, officials said on Friday.

“Sultan was rearrested late Thursday night,” the officials said. He was first arrested in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case in September 2018 when he was working as a reporter with a local magazine.

The journalist was arrested for “allegedly providing logistical support to a banned militant group.”

Sultan was released two months after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in December last year quashed his detention order under the Public Safety Act.

In April 2022, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court granted him bail in the case on the grounds that investigative agencies “failed to establish his links with any militant group”. However, days later he was booked under the PSA.

He was released from Ambedkar Nagar district jail in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and reached home on Thursday.

The court had said the authorities “did not follow the procedural requirements in letter and spirit”.

Officials said Sultan’s release was delayed because the jail authorities at Ambedkar Nagar district jail in Uttar Pradesh were awaiting clearance letters from Kashmir’s home department and Srinagar district magistrate.

“He reached home and was also taken to SMHS hospital for check-up for chest infection,” the officials added. Sultan was first arrested in a UAPA case in September 2018 when he was working as a reporter with a local magazine.

However, the family’s joy was short-lived as he was taken into custody in another case the same night he returned home, the officials said.

In another incident, Nitasha Kaul, a professor of Indian origin at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom, claimed that she was denied entry on February 25 when she landed at the Bengaluru airport to attend an event for which she was invited by the Karnataka government and was then deported.

Kaul, a Kashmiri Pandit, claimed that she was given no reason by the immigration officials and received no notice or information in advance from the Indian government that she would not be allowed to enter the country. MEA on Thursday said entry of foreign nationals into the country is a “sovereign decision”.