India police arrest Kashmiri activist
SRINAGAR: Indian police said yesterday they have arrested a prominent Kashmiri activist who was this week prevented from travelling to Geneva, where he had been due to brief UN officials on the strife-torn region. Khurram Pervez was arrested late Thursday after returning to his home in Srinagar, which has been roiled for months by violent protests over the killing of a young militant by Indian soldiers. Police superintendent Faisal Qayoom confirmed his arrest but did not say what the charges were. “We are looking into it. For the moment we’ve taken him into custody,” he said.
Pervez’s wife Samina told AFP police had come to the family home late on Thursday to arrest him. He can be held for up to six months without charge under India’s Public Safety Act. More than 80 people have been killed in Indianadministered Kashmir since the militant leader’s death on July 8, in one of the deadliest bouts of violence since a fullblown armed rebellion was at its peak in the 1990s.
Most have died in clashes between protesters and police and paramilitaries who have fired tear gas and pellet guns at demonstrators. Authorities this week banned prayers to mark the Eid festival at the main mosque in Srinagar, capital of India’s only Muslim-majority state. Internet and mobile networks have also been cut off in a bid to prevent a repeat of the protests.
Pervez, coordinator of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), was scheduled to brief a UN Human Rights Council session on the situation, but immigration officials blocked him from boarding his flight at Delhi’s main airport. Both India and neighboring Pakistan lay claim to the whole of the Himalayan territory, which has been divided between the two since they separated seven decades ago. The two countries, which are both now nuclear powers, have twice gone to war over the territory and accuse each other of stoking violence.
Parvez and his organization were the first to report and draw attention to thousands of mass graves in remote parts of Kashmir and to demand that the government investigate them to make clear who the dead were and how they were killed. His organization also has written scathing reports about brutality involving some of the hundreds of thousands of Indian troops in the region and highlighted widespread powers granted to troops which led to a culture of impunity and widespread rights abuses.
Anti-Indian protests continued yesterday as the region remained under strict curfew to prevent widespread demonstrations as people gathered for Friday Muslim prayers.