CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday visited his ailing party member Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami for the second day before returning to the national capital, officials said.
Yechury held a breakfast meeting with Tarigami at his government accommodation situated at the Gupkar road in the civil lines area of Srinagar city where he has been put under detention since August 5 when the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked. After the meeting concluded, Yechury left for New Delhi where he would be submitting an affidavit regarding his meeting with Tarigami to the Supreme Court.
The CPI(M) general secretary also refuted Centre's claims of normalcy returning to the Valley and said that there is a huge difference between what the government's claims and the situation.
"I was put up in a guest house where I could not have gone out and nobody could have come to meet me. As it appeared, there is a huge difference in what the government and administration is claiming and the actual situation there," Yechury was quoted as saying by ANI news agency after he returned to Delhi from Jammu Kashmir.
Yechury had arrived in Srinagar on Thursday afternoon with a Supreme Court order and was escorted by police to meet Tarigami. He spent nearly three hours with the former MLA.
The Supreme Court had on Wednesday rejected Centre's argument that Yechury's visit to Tarigami may put in danger the situation in the state.
"Why do you have any difficulty if a citizen of this country wants to go there and meet his friend and party colleague," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was opposing Yechury's visit.
The top court made it clear that Yechury was allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir to meet his party colleague only as attention has been drawn to an interim application seeking orders from the court for bringing Tarigami to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, for better medical facilities.
The bench said if he was found to be "indulging in any other act of omission and commission, it will be construed to be a violation of this court order".
Yechury's counsel had also made a submission to the apex court that he was willing to give an undertaking that he would not indulge in any other activity other than meeting Tarigami and enquiring about his well-being.
Tarigami is among a host of mainstream political leaders who were detained during the intervening night of August 4 and 5. The CPI-M leader is under detention at his house while many other politicians have been locked up at Centaur hotel.
Yechury had gone to Srinagar on August 9 too, four days after the Centre announced the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status but was asked to return from the airport by the state administration.
(With inputs from agencies)
.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&format=webp&w=376&dpr=2.0)
