Kashmiri activist booked under UAPA, accused of funding terror

Srinagar: Khurram Parvez, a notable activist for human rights in Jammu and Kashmir, was arrested by the National Investigating Agency on Monday following a raid at his offices in Srinagar. Parvez has been accused by the NIA of funding terrorist activities in an ongoing investigation and booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The raid on his offices in Somwar and Amira Kadal was carried out with the assistance of Jammu and Kashmir Police as well as CRPF personnel. Parvez was picked up from his residence for questioning by an NIA officer and then arrested later in the day. He will be taken to New Delhi today after transit remand by a local special court.

The FIR filed states that he is being charged 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 Sections 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 organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

He is currently the programme coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a human rights federation. He is also the chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD). Parvez was well known in the Valley as a human rights activist who had lost his leg to a landmine while monitoring the J&K elections of 2004.

Parvez had previously been arrested and prevented from travelling to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Switzerland in 2016 after he was detained under the Public Safety Act for encouraging people to protest and raise slogans after the death of a militant commander Burhan Wani.