Jammu
Human rights activists and groups have condemned the raids of India’s notorious National Investigation Agency (NIA) on non-governmental organisations, activists and journalists in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Indian capital New Delhi and the southern city of Bengaluru.
India’s crackdown on Kashmiri Hurriyat, leaders and activists has escalated since August 2019 when New Delhi scrapped the special status of the Muslim-majority IIOJK.
Among those raided were Kashmir-based rights activists, Khurram Parvez and Parveena Ahangar, the office of the Greater Kashmir newspaper, the house of Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Kashmir correspondent, Parvaiz Bukhari, and the properties of former Delhi Minority Commission Chairman, Zafar-ul-Islam Khan, in New Delhi. The groups raided by the NIA included the Falah-e-Aam Trust, Charity Alliance, Human Welfare Foundation, JK Yateem Foundation, Jammu and Salvation Movement, and J&K Voice of Victims.
Zafar-ul-Islam Khan, who heads the New Delhi-based Charity Alliance, told Al Jazeera that the NIA’s allegation of his NGO funding terror in IIOJK was a “Himalayan lie”.
“Apart from some relief work like sending medicines, blankets and giving some very small monetary help to flood victims, we have no work worth mention in Kashmir,” he said.
Calling the raids “well-planned and choreographed”, he said he had no contacts with Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders and has not visited the territory in many years.
The former Delhi state minority panel chief said the government led by right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is targeting him for his report on the religious violence in the city earlier this year – the worst in decades, which killed at least 53 people, most of them Muslims.
The NIA raids were also criticised by global rights watchdogs.—KMS
