By Jehangir Ali
Srinagar: Authorities in Kashmir have demolished a residential house owned by the father of the young doctor investigators have described as the “prime suspect” in the Red Fort blast case in Delhi.
The demolition took place in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district despite the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that razing the homes of suspects or convicts without following due process of law was “totally unconstitutional”.
Locals and family sources said that the demolition was carried out in Pulwama’s Koil village using controlled explosives during the intervening night of Thursday and Friday (November 13 and 14).
They said that a team of security forces laid a siege of Koil at around 8 PM on Thursday following which residents of dozens of houses in Muslimpora locality were asked to vacate their premises.
According to reports, three controlled explosions were carried out in the double-storied house of Dr Umar Nabi who is believed to have driven the car that exploded around a metro station near Red Fort in the national capital on November 10.
No official has confirmed that Nabi was driving the Hyundai car involved in the blast, even though some reports have quoted officials saying that the DNA samples lifted from the ill-fated car’s mangled remains have matched with the young doctor’s mother.
“We were not served any notice,” sources in Nabi’s family said when asked whether the officials had followed the due process of law before demolishing their house. “Security forces asked us to empty the house within minutes on Thursday evening and we had no choice but to leave,” they added.
The family sources said that the house was registered in the name of Ghulam Nabi Bhat, a former teacher and father of Nabi.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
