The Socialist Party (India) welcomes the Delhi High Court’s decision to grant bail to Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez in connection with one of the two cases for which he is imprisoned. The party hopes that he will also be granted bail in the second case so that he can finally return home after spending more than four years in jail on baseless charges.
Parvez is a co-founder of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), an internationally recognised organisation that documents human rights violations in Kashmir. The JKCCS has conducted rigorous investigations into the illegal detentions, forced disappearances, torture, and sexual violence faced by Kashmiri people in the last few decades, and produced authoritative reports that have been cited by international scholars and civil society organisations. The JKCCS has also been invited to participate in review sessions on India’s human rights situation organised by the UN Human Rights Council. Parvez’s arrest is clearly part of a larger government strategy to systematically suppress any form of dissent or criticism, especially on an international stage, of its policies and actions in Kashmir.
Khurram was arrested in May 2022 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on charges of “conspiracy to wage war against the government of India”, “recruiting any person or persons for commission of a terrorist act”, and “giving support to a terrorist organisation”, among others. He was arrested for a second case in March 2023 with similar charges, again under the UAPA, while still in detention. The alleged evidence for these charges appears to involve a willful distortion of the nature and intent of Khurram’s information-gathering activities, which were part of his ongoing documentation of the Valley’s human rights situation. Trial in either of the two cases is yet to begin.
Parvez’s situation yet again highlights how the UAPA has been persistently deployed by the Indian government to silence political activists, human rights defenders, and dissidents. The law’s stringent bail conditions and provision for extended detention without a formal chargesheet make it ripe for misuse. The rate of conviction under the UAPA is less than 5 percent, and in Kashmir it is less than one percent, yet the government continues to dismiss any concerns raised in this regard. The SP(I) once again calls for this unconstitutional law to be repealed.
Mir Shahid Saleem (Ph: 9622002001)
Vice-President and Spokesperson
Socialist Party (India)
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