The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez more than four years after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Live Law reported.
A division bench allowed Parvez’s challenge to a December 2024 order by a trial court that denied him bail.
Parvez was arrested in November 2021 under sections of the anti-terror law pertaining to alleged membership of a terrorist organisation and terror funding.
He was also charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to waging, attempting to wage, abetting waging of war against the government, recruiting of a person for a terrorist act and criminal conspiracy.
Parvez is accused of supporting terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba’s activities through a network of overground workers, Bar and Bench reported.
The National Investigation Agency accused him of recruiting operatives, and gathering information about security forces and military installations.
Parvez was arrested during the investigation, although he was not named in the original first information report, Live Law reported.
He is associated with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a union of nonprofit campaign and advocacy organisations in Srinagar.
In his bail appeal, Parvez said that he was a “factual stranger” to the alleged conspiracy and highlighted that the investigators had failed to establish any contact between him and operatives of the terror group.
He contended that an examination of his digital devices that were seized would show no proof of communication with alleged handlers or evidence of recruitment of overground workers, Bar and Bench reported.
Parvez also rejected the allegations that his visits to Pakistan in the past could link him to banned organisations. He said that the trips had been part of humanitarian and advocacy initiatives.
In October 2020, the NIA conducted searches at Parvez’s home in a case pertaining to the raising of funds in India and abroad for charity and allegedly “using those funds for carrying out secessionist and separatist activities”.
In 2016, the activist was booked under the Public Safety Act after protests triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani. He had spent 76 days in detention at the time.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
Also read: Empty rooms, silenced voices: What remains of Kashmiri civil society’s valiant fight for justice
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