SC allows Mehbooba Mufti's daughter to meet her in Kashmir

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Itija to meet her mother in Srinagar privately, ordered the state’s CPM leader Yusuf Tairgami be shifted to AIIMS in Delhi for treatment and asked the centre to respond to petitions urging the court to lift a month-long communication lockdown denying residents access to grocery, medicines and hospitals.

The bench will now deal with the pleas to lift the communication lockdown and basic human rights issues involved therein on Sept 16. The bench will also hear another petition that has claimed press freedom had been jeopardised by the communication blackout.

Others have pleaded with the court to direct the state government to provide transportation facilities to patients affected by the curbs. The bench said it would hear these petitions after it gets a response on these multiple issues from the central government. “We will hear these petitions on Sept 16,” the CJI led three-judge bench said.


The CJI’s order came after the Attorney General (AG) submitted to the government a status report that claimed over 80 per cent of the landlines in the state were functioning. Besides, over 7 lakh people had visited hospitals, the AG claimed, denying JK residents were facing problems accessing hospitals due to the curbs on their movement. The top court took up Itija’s petition first and allowed her permission to go to Srinagar to meet her mother who’s in custody. She insisted and the court permitted her to be allowed to meet her mother in “private.” But should she wish to go elsewhere, it has to be with the permission of the local authorities, the court clarified.