SRINAGAR: The Principal Sessions Court in Anantnag on Friday rejected the bail plea of a man accused of raping a 70-year-old tourist from Maharashtra at a hotel in Pahalgam. The accused, Zubair Ahmad Bhat of Ganeshbal Pahalgam, is under judicial custody after being charged under Sections 64 and 331(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The court, presided over by Principal Sessions Judge Tahir Khurshid Raina, delivered a searing indictment of what he called the “decay of moral values” in Kashmir. The judge said the incident was not merely an isolated crime but a stark symptom of broader societal decline.
“This is not an isolated act to be ignored,” the court observed, “but a reflection of a highest degree of depravity and sick mentality prevailing in the society — which must bow its head down in shame and invites a serious introspection as to what it stood for, and how that has now collapsed.”
The alleged incident took place at Hotel Chinar Inn in the popular tourist resort of Pahalgam, where the elderly victim had come with her son’s family. According to the police investigation, Bhat unlawfully entered the woman’s hotel room while she was alone, gagged her with a blanket, raped her, caused injuries, and fled through the window. The assault left the woman bedridden and in severe pain for several days.
The judge noted that Kashmir, once renowned globally for its hospitality and civilisational grace, now finds its ethical moorings severely challenged. He began his judgment with an evocative Urdu couplet praising the Valley’s legendary warmth towards visitors — a contrast to the “highly unethical” conduct alleged in the case. “Every particle of my Kashmir is a cradle of hospitality,” he quoted, adding that such values are now being “glaringly stigmatized.”
While the accused’s counsel, Advocate Suhail Beg, argued for bail on grounds of alleged false implication, personal enmity with police, absence of a test identification parade, and cooperation with the investigation, the court dismissed these claims after reviewing the case diary, medical and forensic evidence, and the victim’s statement. It found the allegations to be prima facie supported.
“The material on record collectively and prima facie negates the grounds of bail advanced by the accused,” the judge ruled. “The investigation is still underway and yet to culminate into a charge sheet.”
Judge Raina acknowledged the well-established legal principle of “bail, not jail” but said such a guideline must be weighed alongside other factors, including the gravity of the offence, severity of punishment, potential of the accused to interfere with the investigation, and the broader impact on society.
“The principle of bail, not jail, cannot be blindly followed at the cost of ignoring all these factors,” he stated.
But the most forceful section of the order came in its parting observations, where the court offered a moral commentary on the state of Kashmiri society. Describing the victim as a “revered guest” in the “land of saints and seers,” the judge wrote that she was “treated so shabbily and shockingly that she will have remorse over the choice of place she made to spend a period of her old age days with her children.”
“The mere meadows, mountains, lush green fields, forests, springs, rivers, rivulets, and gardens will not come to the rescue of Kashmir as a desired tourist destination,” the court warned. “No sooner the sheet-anchors, conscience keepers, watchdogs, and philanthropists of this society will rise to the occasion to check what is going wrong on the moral front, the better it will be for saving Kashmir as the paradise on earth in its true sense.”
