Ishfaq-Ul-Hassan
SRINAGAR—National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested internationally acclaimed human rights defender Khurram Parvez in a terror funding case.
NIA raided Khurram’s office at Amira Kadal Bund in Srinagar on Monday. Later it raided Khurram’s residence in Sonwar.
According to the arrest memo, he was arrested in FIR RC-30/2021/NIA/DLI filed on November 6 under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging, attempting to wage, abetting waging of war against the government), and 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by Section 121); and Section 17 (raising funds for the terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy), 18B (recruiting of any person or persons for the terrorist act) and 40 (raising funds for a terrorist organization) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The memo said his brother Sheikh Shaharyar was informed about his arrest. Khurram’s is likely to be taken to New Delhi on Tuesday.
Earlier, Khurram, a programme coordinator of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and chairman of the Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearance, was arrested on the intervening night of September 15 and 16, 2016.
The then Mehbooba Mufti-led government booked him under Public Safety Act (PSA). He was arrested a day before he was scheduled to travel to Switzerland to participate in the UN Human Rights Council session.
A local court had ordered his release from Kupwara Jail, but police re-arrested him from the premises of Kupwara sub-jail and shifted him to police station Kothi Bagh here. District authorities have directed the police to lodge Khurram in Kot Balwal jail, Jammu. He was released after 76 days of prison.
“The detention order was based on a police report which claimed that policemen had seen Khurram on September 15 standing outside a mosque inciting people to shout slogans and march towards a government building. However, his wife has denied the claim, saying that they were at her parents’ house in another part of the city at the time”, Amnesty International had said in a statement in 2016.
A co-author of the report on unmarked nameless graves, Khurram holds Masters in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University of Kashmir.
Khurram, 44, had a miraculous escape in an IED blast in Kupwara during the 2004 parliamentary elections. Khurram’s colleague died in the incident while his leg was amputated, and he is now using a prosthetic leg.
