SRINAGAR, Sept 10: A jailed member of parliament from Indian-administered Kashmir was granted interim bail on Tuesday to allow him to campaign for local elections in the disputed region, his lawyer said.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between rivals India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim the Himalayan territory in full.
Indian-controlled Kashmir is gearing up for the first local assembly elections in a decade, with voting in the three-phased poll beginning on September 18.
Sheikh Abdul "Engineer" Rashid, 57, who was arrested on terrorism funding accusations, was elected as a national lawmaker in June but has been held in a high-security prison in Delhi.
"The court has granted Engineer Rashid interim bail so that he can campaign for his party in the assembly election," his lawyer Ubaid Shams told AFP. —AFP
