Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez was detained by local police late on Thursday evening, a day after he was disallowed from boarding a flight from Delhi to Geneva for a United Nations meeting. No charges against him have been disclosed yet. The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, where Parvez is a programme coordinator, said he had been arrested, though it remains unclear what the police action against him was.
According to The Indian Express, his family members said he had received a call from Kothibagh police station on Thursday evening, only hours after he returned to Kashmir from Delhi. The police officers reportedly wanted him to visit the Superintendent of Police for the area, and he told them he would go the next morning. "Late in the night, a police party came to his home, asking him to accompany them to the police station. There was no police officer in the police station at that time. They told us that he would have to stay in the police station," a relative told the English daily.
The police officers allegedly did not give any reason when they took him away.
The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society had on Thursday said that Parvez was "orally informed [at the airport] that immigration officers had instructions that he was not to be ‘arrested’, but that he should not be allowed to leave the country". It added, "…Parvez is not being allowed to travel because he has been highlighting violations of human rights."
Parvez is also the chairperson of Asian Federation Against involuntary Disappearances.
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