Aasif Sultan was first arrested in August 2018 accused of \u2018harbouring known militants\u2019
\nSrinagar
\nAn award-winning journalist in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) who spent more than five years in jail returned home Wednesday after a court in the disputed region granted him bail in an ongoing terrorism case.
\nAasif Sultan, a reporter with a magazine that is now shuttered, was first arrested in August 2018 accused of \u201charbouring known militants\u201d.
\nFurther charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) were levelled against him after he was accused of participating in a jail riot.
\nSultan was briefly bailed in February but rearrested two days later on fresh charges under the act. A relative and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Sultan had been released again this week.
\n\u201cHe returned home today, but the bail conditions are very harsh. He is virtually banned from talking to anyone outside the family,\u201d the relative told AFP, declining to be named for fear of reprisal.
\nKunal Majumder of CPJ said on social media platform X that Sultan had been bailed on Tuesday.
\nA court document seen by AFP and dated Friday said that Sultan\u2019s detention did \u201cnot serve any purpose\u201d and granted his bail on strict conditions.
\nSultan was forbidden from travelling outside IIOJK, using encrypted communication apps such as WhatsApp and allowing anyone else to use his phone..
\nMore than half a million Indian soldiers are deployed in the territory, battling a running insurgency from rebel groups demanding independence or IIOJK\u2019s merger with Pakistan.
\nThe fighting has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.
\nIndia accuses Pakistan of backing the insurgents, a charge that Islamabad denies.
\nKashmiri journalists say independent media has suffered since Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government cancelled the region\u2019s limited autonomy and imposed a drastic security clampdown in 2019.
\nMedia workers have been arrested under anti-terrorism laws or repeatedly summoned by police for interrogation over their work, and authorities shut the independent Kashmir Press Club.
\nLast November a court granted bail to a prominent local Kashmiri correspondent for the US-based Christian Science Monitor newspaper, two years after he was charged with \u201cglorifying terrorism\u201d in the disputed territory and accused of \u201cspreading fake news\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aasif Sultan was first arrested in August 2018 accused of \u2018harbouring known militants\u2019 Srinagar An award-winning journalist in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) who spent more than five years in jail returned home Wednesday after a court in the disputed region granted him bail in an ongoing terrorism case. Aasif Sultan, a reporter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-407244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n