‘Himalayan lie’: India raids over Kashmir ‘terror funds’ slammed

[Kamikaze Pilot]

‘Himalayan lie’: India raids over Kashmir ‘terror funds’ slammed

30 Oct 2020

Activists and rights groups condemn series of raids by National Investigation Agency in disputed Kashmir, New Delhi and Bengaluru.

Activists and rights groups have condemned Indian agency’s raids on non-governmental organisations, activists and journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir, national capital New Delhi and the southern city of Bengaluru over alleged “terror funding” in the disputed region.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted a series of raids in those places on Wednesday and Thursday, accusing several “non-profit groups and charitable trusts” of collecting funds and using them for “carrying out secessionist and separatist activities”.

India’s crackdown on Kashmiri rebels, leaders and activists has escalated since August 2019 when New Delhi scrapped the special status of the Muslim-majority region, also claimed by Pakistan.

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 Zafarul Islam Khan in the national capital.

The groups raided by the NIA included the Falah-e-Aam Trust, Charity Alliance, Human Welfare Foundation, JK Yateem Foundation, Salvation Movement, and J&K Voice of Victims.

‘Himalayan lie’
Khan, 72, who heads the New Delhi-based Charity Alliance, told Al Jazeera the NIA’s allegation of his NGO funding terror in Indian-administered Kashmir 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 wrote.

Calling the raids “well-planned and choreographed”, Khan said he had “no contacts” with Kashmiri rebels and has not visited the region in many years.

The former Delhi state minority panel chief accused the government led by right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of 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.

“They are trying to penalise me for my work in the Delhi Minorities Commission, especially the report on the northeast Delhi riots,” Khan said.

‘Authoritarian tactics’
The NIA raids were also criticised by global rights watchdogs.


The Human Rights Watch on Friday said the BJP government was using “counterterrorism operations to silence peaceful dissenters, human rights activists, and journalists” by bringing in “politically motivated criminal cases” against them.

“Using authoritarian tactics against outspoken critics and journalists needs to stop,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s South Asia director.

Another statement released by the Amnesty International on Thursday said there was a “worrying pattern” in India where anti-terror and foreign funding laws were “being repeatedly and deliberately weaponised to intimidate, harass and restrict the ability of civil society groups from operating”.

“These raids are an alarming reminder that India’s government is determined to suppress all dissenting voices in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Amnesty’s Julie Verhaar.


The raids came days after Indian authorities sealed the office of an English daily, the Kashmir Times, causing outrage from journalists and condemnation from global media watchdogs.

Last week, the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called out India’s “problematic” and “vaguely-worded” laws that are increasingly being used to quell voices in civil society.

The three such laws Bachelet identified were the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Last month, Amnesty International’s India office said it was forced to halt its work after its bank accounts were frozen by the government over alleged FCRA violations.


India’s Hindu nationalist government has used the stringent UAPA to arrest and jail dozens of Muslim activists who had protested against the passage of the CAA in December last year.

The law fast-tracks Indian nationality for all minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, except Muslims, a provision critics say is unconstitutional.

Bilal Kuchay contributed to this report.

‘Himalayan lie’: India raids over Kashmir ‘terror funds’ slammed

Activists and rights groups condemn National Investigation Agency’s raids in disputed Kashmir, New Delhi and Bengaluru.

www.google.com

- PRTP GWD

 

[jamahir]

India’s Hindu nationalist government has used the stringent UAPA to arrest and jail dozens of Muslim activists who had protested against the passage of the CAA in December last year.

The government just wanted to jail progressives like Umar Khalid and plain anti-CAA topic-specific protesters like Safoora Zargar.

This is just stifling dissenters and the Western governments haven't protested.

 

[Kamikaze Pilot]

Is Fighting for My Son a Crime? J&K Activist Ahangar on NIA Raids

Known as the ‘Iron Lady of Kashmir’, Parveena Ahanger founded the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.
Jehangir Ali
Published: 30 Oct 2020, 9:56 AM IST
Srinagar-based human rights defender Parveena Ahanger. | (Photo: Jehangir Ali/The Quint)(Photo: Jehangir Ali/<b>The Quint</b>)
India
Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for her groundbreaking work on the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Kashmir, Srinagar-based human rights defender, Parveena Ahanger, is finding herself pushed to the wall after the National Investigations Agency quizzed her on 28 October, Wednesday, in the terror funding case.

Popularly known as the ‘Iron Lady of Kashmir’, Ahanger, who founded the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), is, however, determined to carry on the fight for justice for the victims of enforced disappearances and other excesses committed against ordinary people in Kashmir.

She spoke with The Quint at her red-bricked, double-storied residence in Gangbugh on the city outskirts where she lives with her husband, two sons and a daughter.

Parveena Ahanger’s residence.(Photo: Jehangir Ali/<b>The Quint</b>)

The National Investigations Agency (NIA) claims to have recovered incriminating material during the raid at your office? How do you respond?

My life is an open book. In three decades of my work, I have never been humiliated like this. It make me sad. It has been thirty years since my son disappeared. He was abducted by the Army in 1990. I have searched him in the plains and trekked the mountains in order to find him. Am I committing a crime by demanding to know the whereabouts of my son?

What is the role of the APDP?

I formed this association in 1994, when the government as well as the courts failed to deliver justice in my son’s case. Using newspaper cuttings, I traced the families of other victims who were subjected to enforced disappearance and brought them on a common platform to demand justice.

In 2008, I went to the United Nations, where we had a meeting with a working group on enforced disappearances. The UN funds our work. We help the families of the victims of abuses.

Also read:
LeT Behind Killing of Three BJP Workers in J&K’s Kulgam: Police
Tell us more about your son.

Javed Ahmad Ahanger, my son, was abducted by the Army in 1990. I asked the government to help me in tracing him. But no one helped me. The judiciary used to be the house of justice. I petitioned the courts for four years but even there, mothers like me were let down. We have seen many ministers, many governments. But our plight has failed to move them all.

Then I decided to take this battle to the streets. We used to hold a sit-in on the 10th of every month in Srinagar as a mark of protest but because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to meet.

I have promised my creator that I will fight for this cause till I am alive. If they snatched our children, they should tell us where they have kept them.

What happened on the day of the raid?

They (NIA) raided my house after predawn prayers. I and my daughter Saima, who also works with the APDP, were having morning tea in the kitchen, when my husband walked in and, with a stern face, said that someone was asking for me at the main door.

When I came out, there were hundreds of security personnel on the road. I was shocked. I am doing a noble work, and in the past 30 years, no one has asked me questions. No one has raised a finger on my integrity. This is the first time I am finding myself in this situation.

There was a cavalcade of cars, both official and private. There were women security personnel, too. They asked who was inside the house. I told them there is no one except my family. Then, they took away our mobile phones and asked me to lock all the rooms, except the kitchen.

I kept telling them that I have nothing to hide. They asked for my work related documents, so Saima, my daughter, and I took them to our office. The raid started at around 7 am, and it ended at 4 pm. It was a traumatic experience.

Did the NIA investigators make any seizures from your office?

They took away hard drives from a computer and xeroxed the data of the victims and their families. They asked for my bank account details, which I gladly shared with them. They also made us sign some documents. I have nothing to hide. My office works on a UN grant.

Whatever assistance I have got, it is all accounted. I told the investigators that I have a relationship with thousands of families whose loved ones have been subjected to enforced disappearances. I have worked with pellet, torture and rape victims. These are important issues. Wherever there are abuses, I work with the survivors. I try to share their grief. If it is a crime, I am guilty as charged.

Also read:
Despite J&K Changes, You Still Can’t Buy Land in These States
There are unconfirmed reports doing rounds that you may have amassed disproportionate wealth while doing activism in Kashmir?

My office runs out of a private building and the rent is paid out of the UN grant. I have won the Rafto Prize for Human Rights in 2017, which carried cash assistance. I was nominated for a Nobel as well. Last year, the BBC named me among the 100 inspiring women.

I have spoken at many universities in the country and abroad. Whatever savings I have, it is all accounted. My conscience is clear. During the questioning, an NIA official took away a blank cheque from the booklet, and I jokingly told him to let me sign it so that we can divide the money later. He burst into laughter.

Did the NIA investigators treat you well?

I would be lying if I say they didn’t. But they treated me well because we cooperated with them. I have nothing to hide. There are people who support families of victims but whatever financial assistance they have provided so far, it is all accounted. I told them that I have visited 17 countries, and I will continue to raise voice for justice. One officer told me that I was a strong lady.

I told him that I am not strong but the iron lady. I asked him what mistake I had committed that my son was snatched from me. The government orders inquiries and sets up commissions. What has come out of them. Courts have failed to deliver justice. Who should we go to?

Besides your exhaustive work on the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Kashmir, do you work in other fields of rights abuses as well?

We were recently working with torture and pellet victims as well as those who have been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA). If a person is booked under the PSA and he is the sole bread earner of his family, am I at fault if I take care of their families’ daily needs. Over 600 persons in Kashmir have been blinded by pellets. They have become a burden on their families when they should be a support. How are their families responsible for what they do? Why should they be punished?

Did the investigators ask you to give up?

I told them to resolve our issue first. Where have our children vanished? If the law applies to us, why can’t it apply to the Armed forces as well? I have turned down compensation offers. Money can buy anything, but it can’t return our loved ones. Some mothers have lost two, some three sons.

If I am not there to help them, they will die of starvation. Let them tell us where our children are, and we will sit at home.

Also read:
‘Nobody Will Shoot’: Dramatic Video Terrorist Surrendering in J&K
Do you feel troubled by what has happened? Will the APDP continue its work?

Not at all. I am not afraid. We all have to die. I am fighting for my right. I am not a leader. I am a victim myself. When I went into the dark alleys of Kashmir, I found more painful stories. I am not committing any wrong. Except Allah, I am not afraid of anyone. My children have suffered because of what I do. I couldn’t raise them properly which is why they aren’t doing well in their lives. Perhaps I was not meant to serve my children. I was called upon to help the victims like me, and my creator has taken care of my children. I was offered cash assistance by the Army to give up, but I didn’t accept it.

On one hand, we have been victimised by the Armed forces, the government and the judiciary, and on the other, we are being treated like criminals. I am not doing business. My office is not a shop where any customer can come and make purchases. It is a sacred place where I try to apply balm to our wounds. Many governments came and fell but no one helped us. Instead of giving us justice, we are feeling harassed. They should go through the files of victims and see for themselves what has happened in Kashmir.

If everyone decides to give up their fight, I will be the last person standing. It is a long battle. Till I am alive, I will continue to pursue justice.

(Jehangir Ali is a Srinagar-based journalist. He tweets at @gaamuk.)

Is Fighting for My Son a Crime? J&K Activist Ahangar on NIA Raids

NIA Raids In Jammu and Kashmir: Srinagar-based human rights defender, Parveena Ahanger, is finding herself pushed to the wall after the National Investigations Agency quizzed her in the terror funding case.

www.google.com

- PRTP GWD

 

[Kamikaze Pilot]

@xeuss

Read between the lines. See through her lies.

- PRTP GWD