The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court on Thursday denied bail to two accused involved in circulating a video on social media with the purpose of tarnishing the image of Kashmiri female students studying in other parts of the country. Special NIA judge Javed Alam noted that acts of character assassination might dissuade parents of girls from allowing them to pursue education and no religion, including Islam, allows anybody to make character assassination of any person.The duo, Iftikhar Ahmed Dar and Abid Shafi Malik, was arrested in January this year by Anantnag police after a complaint over a video of them on Facebook pertaining to the Kashmiri girls studying outside J&K.Following the arrest, a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by Deputy Superintendent Ashiq Hussain and DO Shairbagh Majid, investigated the case and found that the duo tried to incite and provoke people by claiming that the girl students were found to be involved in immoral activities and were also using psychotropic drugs.Deliberating on the issue, the judge said the act resorted to by the accused allegedly involved in character assassination of the female students studying in other states is not only a torment for the girls in particular but it has likelihood of sowing seeds of reservation in the minds of thousands of parents to dissuade them from allowing their daughters to achieve meritoriously in the field of education. It may be a combined act of to demoralize such enthusiastic parents, the judge said.Judge Alam said the law is that every individual who is a major has a choice at his disposal to do things perceived by him as right and fruitful within the frame work of legal boundaries.“No religion including Islam allows anybody to make character assassination of any person that too on social media. Even in Muslim religion, there is a verse in Holy Quran and a categorical Hadith, which postulates that there is no compulsion in religion, everyone is responsible for his actions and even if any action on part of an individual appears to be distasteful to a few, there is strict prohibition in Islam from making it public to tarnish his or her image.”The judge observed that the material on record “overwhelmingly and cogently” points towards the accused involvement in the act. He dismissed the plea for bail saying, if given, it may thwart the investigation process at this stage.“They have become a law unto themselves, thus a threat to the rule of law and societal order. There is every apprehension that bail if granted to them it may no longer render the case conducive to fair trial as investigation is at initial stage.”Alam further said this alleged felony on part of the accused has every likelihood of surging the reluctance amongst parents to send their daughters outside Jammu and Kashmir for pursuing education to escape perceivable ignominious consequences of such misinformation.“Further, the marriage prospects of the girls despite exemplary mettle proved by them in the field of education in the recent past is also at stake due to the character assassination/act of the accused.”“It may not be a war against the nation, but it definitely is a war against the girl child to deprive them of equal opportunities and guaranteed rights to suffocate their ambitions and torment their souls, to clip their flight of development and turn them naïve and un-relevant,” the judge observed.Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Assembly Elections Live Updates here.