Delhi Court grants interim bail to Engineer Rashid

New Delhi, Sep 10: A Delhi Court Tuesday granted interim bail till October 2 to Member of Parliament Engineer Rashid in a terror funding case.

Rashid defeated former chief minister Omar Abdullah in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Baramulla.

Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh granted the relief to Rashid, who had moved the court seeking interim bail to campaign in the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections.

“I am granting interim bail till October 2. He will have to surrender on October 3,” the judge said.

The judge granted Rashid the relief on a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and one surety of the like amount.

The judge also imposed various conditions on him, including that he should not influence the witnesses or the probe.

On July 5, the court had granted Rashid custody parole to take the oath as a Member of Parliament.

Rashid has been in jail since 2019 after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the 2017 terror funding case.

He was lodged at Tihar Jail.

The court has reserved for Wednesday its order on his regular bail application.

Rashid’s name cropped up in the case during the investigation of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who was arrested by the NIA for allegedly funding terrorist groups and separatists in Kashmir.

The NIA had filed a charge sheet against several people, including Kashmiri separatist leader Muhammad Yasin Malik, Lashkar-e-Toiba founder Hafiz Saeed, and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Syed Salahuddin, in the case.

Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to the charges.