The world should know about Kashmir
Below is a deeply troubling report published in The Telegraph of Kolkata of Oct 29. In a dispatch sent from Srinagar, correspondent Muzaffar Raina writes:
“The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has raided a cross-section of the civil society in Kashmir, including human rights defenders and journalists, on a day resistance seemed to be crystallising against the new land purchase policy notified by the Centre.
“Officials of the NIA, which reports to the Union home ministry, said searches were carried out on 10 premises in Srinagar and Bandipora in the Kashmir Valley and on one locality in Bangalore in connection with a case involving NGOs and trusts raising funds at home and abroad.
“The officials claimed that funds were raised in the name of charitable activities and subsequently used for carrying out secessionist and separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
“An NIA spokesperson said raids were conducted ‘on the residence and office of Khurram Parvez, co-ordinator of J&K Coalition of Civil Society (CCS); his associates Parvez Ahmad Bukhari, Parvez Ahmad Matta and Swati Sheshadri; Parveena Ahanger, the chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDPK), and NGO Athrout and GK Trust, among others.’”
The following information is also contained in The Telegraph’s report:
The GK Trust publishes two widely read newspapers: Greater Kashmir and Kashmir Uzma. CCS and APDPK are long-established human rights organizations.
Bukhari, a journalist, has contributed to Time magazine and to the news agency Agence France Press (AFP). Athrout is a charity that has been assisting the needy in Kashmir.
On Oct 27, Khurram and others in Kashmir had publicly protested a law announced by New Delhi earlier that day which removed a long-standing bar on people not belonging to Kashmir from buying non-agricultural land in Kashmir.
Khurram tweeted that the bar’s removal indicated a “brazen” plan for demographic changes in Kashmir.
“Disquiet against the new land rule is brewing in Jammu’s Hindu heartland, too, with several Dogra leaders claiming that the Dogra identity was under assault.” Hindu Dogras form a majority in Jammu.
Some days earlier, Anuradha Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times (which has its main office in Jammu), found that the authorities had sealed the paper’s Srinagar office and residence. Commenting on the latest development, Bhasin has said: “The NIA raids on Greater Kashmir’s office and human rights defender Khurram Parvez’s house are attempts to impose silence even on our whispers (and they’re scared of even that). This comes a day after the disempowering land laws.”
Mehbooba Mufti, former Chief Minister of Kashmir, who was recently released after more than a year in detention, has also strongly criticized the raids.
Here’s my comment: Intimidating journalists and human rights defenders, silencing citizens and impeding their access to the internet, is what autocratic regimes do. Is India the world’s largest democracy any longer?
