ISLAMABAD: Kashmiri journalists and rights activists on Monday said that world renowned Kashmiri human rights Defender in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Khurram Parvez, was arrested by Indian’s infamous agency, NIA.
Srinagar-based news website The Kashmiri Walla reported that the family of human rights activist Khurram Parvez, associated with Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS), said that they received an arrest memo (case 30/2021) in his name on Monday evening.
Khurram Parvez is a prominent Kashmiri human rights activist and is the Chairperson of Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances and Program Coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. He is also a recipient of the 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award. Khurram has lost his leg to a landmine blast polls in Kupwara in 2004 while he was monitoring polls.
The human rights defender, who also heads the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, spent 76 days behind bars under the stringent preventive detention law, Public Safety Act during the mass anti-India uprising in 2016 triggered by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani.
A few years ago, Parvez’s initiative led the largest alliance of militant groups in the region United Jihad Council to abandon using landmines.
“He was taken for questioning by the officials who said they were from NIA. They have seized his phone and laptop and few books,” a Kashmiri journalist said on Twitter, quoting Parvez’s family.
“Raid going on at Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS) office on the bund near Amira Kadal bridge in Srinagar Kashmir. Police & CRPF personnel at the spot said NIA officials are conducting the raid,” the journalist had said in a tweet posted earlier morning.
Khurram has been arrested for case 30/2021 (NIA).
“After raid at home, NIA officials took him along and later gave us arrest memo. They have seized some books, his phone, laptop and said he will be taken to Delhi,” his family told media personnel in Srinagar.
Khurram Parvez has been vocal against Indian atrocities and human rights violations against Kashmiri people.
In a recent interview with Anadolu News Agency, Khurram Parvez said that a constitutional change, which needs deployment of tens of thousands of additional soldiers and shoved down the throats of the people for the past year, has no moral validity.
Parvez said that the only goal for last constitutional changes appears to completely disempower and disenfranchise local population.
“By breaking all commitments and forcing changes in Kashmir through military means would not alter the reality of Kashmir. Israel did all this but the Palestine issue is still alive and more than ever the world is behind Palestinians,” he said.
The noted human rights defender said the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir has violated UN Resolutions on Kashmir as also the bilateral commitments with Pakistan.
Parvez pointed out that over the past year even those who swore by the Indian constitution and had defended India’s case on Kashmir at international forums were jailed.
“When New Delhi did not spare its people, you can imagine the fate of the resistance leadership and the masses who have revolted against the Indian rule,” he said.
The rights activist pointed out that the human rights situation was already “so bad” that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released its first-ever report on Jammu and Kashmir in 2018.
