Khurram Pervez: Kashmiri human rights activist arrested on charges of 'helping terrorists'
Human rights groups have strongly condemned Khurram Pervez's detention
India's anti-terrorism agency has arrested Khurram Pervez, a human rights activist in Kashmir.
It is almost impossible to get bail under the anti-terrorism law under which Khurram Pervez has been detained.
The National Investigation Agency raided Khurram Pervez's office and residence and charged him with "terrorist financing" and "conspiracy".
Khurram Pervez has not yet made any statement or response in this regard, but there have been international demands for his release.
Human rights activists have called the arrest on social media an "attempt to silence and punish human rights defenders."
Khurram Pervez is one of the critics of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India and his group, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, has published numerous reports on human rights violations by security forces in Kashmir.
He is also the head of an organization on enforced disappearances in Kashmir and Asia.
Authorities also arrested him in 2016 under the controversial Public Safety Act for refusing to allow him to attend a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Switzerland.
On Monday, the NIA raided Khurram's home and office in Srinagar and took him away for interrogation and he was arrested in the evening.
The police have included charges against him in the case, including charges of "criminal conspiracy", "waging war against the government" and "raising funds for terrorism and terrorist organizations".
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marie Lauer, says the news of Khurram Pervez's detention is alarming. "He is not a terrorist but a defender of human rights," he said in a Twitter message.
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The arrest of Khurram Pervez comes at a time when the situation in Kashmir is tense following the recent killing of two civilians in a police encounter.
Police say the two civilians were killed during an exchange of fire with militants, while relatives of those killed have denied the police's position, saying they were used as human shields and deliberately killed. has been.
Who is Khurram Pervez?
According to the BBC's Riaz Masroor, Khurram Srinagar hails from a well-to-do family who graduated from the University of Kashmir 20 years ago with a degree in journalism and became active in the defense of human rights after a brief stint in journalism.
During the 2004 elections, Khurram sent volunteers across Kashmir to observe the elections and led a team himself. During the same visit in Kupwara district of North Kashmir, a roadside bomb exploded in which one of his volunteers Asiya Jilani was killed while Khurram himself lost his leg. Khurram's wife is an officer in the government's social welfare department. They have two children.
Khurram has been active in human rights not only in Kashmir but also in Europe and the United States. He is also associated with the International Organization of Missing Persons, through which he campaigned for several years for the alleged 8,000 missing persons in Kashmir.
He also worked with a number of UN agencies and published a number of reports on the human rights situation published by the CCS worldwide. Khurram also gathered the families of missing persons in Kashmir, especially their widows, on a platform.
During the Khurram campaign, the widows of the missing persons in Indian-administered Kashmir were given the name of 'half widow'. Khurram also campaigned among religious leaders and associations for the remarriage of these "half-widowed" women, because even decades later, when the missing persons were not found, declaring them dead was causing religious controversy.
Khurram also uncovered thousands of alleged anonymous graves in Kashmir and Poonch through the CCS alliance, to which the then local Human Rights Commission also sought a response from the government.
Khurram is also associated with the International Alliance Against Physical Abuse during interrogations. The Alliance said in a statement that Khurram's arrest appeared to indicate that India was depriving its citizens of the opportunity to express themselves.