Srinagar: The Supreme Court on Thursday (March 12) granted bail to senior Hurriyat leader Shabir Ahmad Shah who has been booked in a terror funding case by the National Investigations Agency (NIA). “Bail granted. A detailed order giving reasons will be passed later,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed while granting bail to Shah who is presently languishing in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.Sehar Shabir, Shah’s daughter, said that she was relieved by the court’s verdict. “I have always affirmed my faith in the judiciary and today my conviction stands vindicated. The bail is the first step towards getting justice for my father who has been wrongly imprisoned,” she told The Wire. The apex court was hearing an appeal challenging an order of the Delhi high court which denied bail to Shah on June 12 last year while observing that the possibility of him carrying out similar unlawful activities and influencing witnesses couldn’t be ruled out. Shah’s counsel had argued before the Delhi high court that the separatist leader had never been convicted in any case but the bail was denied. Later, the apex court also refused to grant interim bail to Shah on September 4 last year. Shah, who is the president of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (JKDFP), was arrested on June 4, 2019 and booked by the NIA for allegedly promoting and funding terrorist and secessionist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. The JKDFP chief was named in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the agency in the 2017 case. Several other Hurriyat leaders including the J&K Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik and J&K National Front chief Nayeem Khan, among others have also been arrested in the case and they too are languishing in Tihar jail. Arguing for Shah, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves and advocate Satya Mitra told the apex court that the Hurriyat leader was “very sick” and he has remained behind bars for nearly 38 years in his political career. Shah has been reportedly diagnosed with prostate cancer and serious kidney complications and he needs support from people around him to take care of his health and attend to his other needs. His ordeal reverberated in J&K assembly last year when Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader M.Y. Tarigami and others urged the government to shift him to Kashmir so that his family could take care of him. Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra who represented the NIA argued against granting bail to Shah, saying that the charges against him were serious in nature and he was in contact with Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir-based militants groups and their leaders. After hearing the argument, the bench told the NIA: “Delay is one aspect that you cannot explain. Forget about who was responsible for the delay. But he continues to be in custody.” The apex court later granted bail to Shah while directing the NIA to recommend stringent bail conditions. Shah is the third person from a group of separatist leaders and a businessman from Kashmir who were diagnosed with cancer while in prison after their arrest by the NIA in the terror funding case. Altaf Ahmad Shah, an associate and son-in-law of the late Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, and influential Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Watali were also diagnosed with renal and prostate cancers, respectively, in jail. Shah died while in custody. Shah has been also booked by the Enforcement Directorate in a case of money laundering following which his Srinagar residence was attached in 2022. The directorate accused him of “fuelling unrest in Kashmir valley by way of stone-throwing, processions, protests, bandhs, hartals and other subversive activities.”Following his arrest by the NIA, his wife and prominent Srinagar-based gynaecologist, Dr Bilquies Shah, filed a bail application, alleging that her husband was being subjected to “slow poisoning” in Tihar jail.Described as a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ by Amnesty International in 1992, Shah has reportedly spent more than 39 years in prison as his politics brought him at loggerheads both with the government and even other separatist leaders.He was arrested for the first time in 1968 as a 14-year-old student accused of organising and carrying out a demonstration in Kashmir for the “right of self-determination” for the people.At the peak of the agitation in Kashmir against the transfer of a tract of land to Amarnath shrine board in 2008, Shah led a march to Muzaffarabad during which moderate Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was killed in alleged police firing.