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New Delhi, March 23 (KMS): A Delhi court has sent illegally detained Kashmiri rights activist Khurram Parvez and Kashmiri journalist Irfan Meraj to 10-day custody of India’s dreaded National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a false case registered against them.
The Principal District and Sessions Judge, Dharmesh Sharma, allowed 10 days of custodial interrogation of Khurram Parvez and Irfan Meraj on two separate applications by the NIA for 12 days’ custody of each of them.
The two persons are remanded to the custody of NIA for a period of 10 days, the judge said. He also said that the persons should be medically examined on each day of remand and produced before the court on April 1.
The NIA on Wednesday formally arrested the illegally detained Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) Programme Coordinator Khurram Parvez in connection with a case related to the funding of the organization.
The journalist Irfan Meraj was arrested by the agency a few days ago in Srinagar. He was a close associate of Khurram Parvez and was working with his organisation, the NIA added.
Khurrum Parvez has been in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail following his arrest by the NIA in November 2021 for his human rights work, particularly for documentation of human rights violations by Indian troops in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He was chargesheeted along with six others on May 13 last year.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Kashmir Council Europe (KCEU) Ali Raza Syed, in a statement issued in Brussels called for the immediate release of Irfan Meraj and other Kashmiri journalists and human rights activists imprisoned by the Indian authorities. He said these arrests are being made to spread fear among the people of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir but the brave Kashmiris will not afraid of this Indian state terrorism.
Indian authorities cannot make silent the people of Kashmir and their right to self-determination could not be suppressed by such inhuman acts, he added. K
