The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested a Srinagar-based Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj (32) on the evening of Monday, March 20th, under the contentious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The NIA has reportedly shifted Mehraj to New Delhi on Tuesday, March 21st. The NIA has arrested Mehraj in its ongoing probe into the Kashmir-based non-government organisations (NGOs) accused of sponsoring activities “prejudicial to the unity, integrity, sovereignty and security of India”.
“Following comprehensive investigations into the NGO Terror funding case registered in October 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Irfan Mehraj from Srinagar (J&K) yesterday (20.03.2023)”, the NIA said in a statement. Mehraj is reportedly the first official arrest in this two-year-old case.
Mehraj was reportedly working on a story when he received a call from the NIA officers, who asked him to visit their office for five minutes on Monday evening. Later, he was arrested by the NIA and then shifted to New Delhi on Tuesday morning. Mehraj had been earlier questioned multiple times by the agency and his electronic gadgets were confiscated in a 2020 raid.
The NIA had lodged a first information report (FIR), No RC-37/2020/NIA/DLI, in the New Delhi-based NIA Police Station on October 8th 2020. The NIA has alleged that foreign funds have been channelised through NGOs to influential people in the Kashmir valley for terrorist activities.
Mehraj had earlier worked for the Kashmiri civil rights organisation Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) as a researcher. The JKCCS, led by Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez, has been facing the NIA’s wrath. Parvez was earlier arrested by Indian authorities which triggered international outrage in 2021. He is still incarcerated and the government has accused him in the same NGO-funding case. The organisation and its website have been closed down since Parvez’s arrest.
“Investigation revealed that the JKCCS was funding terror activities in the valley and had also been in propagation of secessionist agenda in the Valley under the garb of protection of human rights (sic )”, the NIA statement on Mehraj’s arrest read.
Press freedom in Jammu & Kashmir, a former princely state, which was formally annexed and trifurcated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union government in 2019, has reportedly suffered a lot since a clampdown on civil rights began in August 2019 with a total lockdown.
Kashmiri journalists like Fahad Shah, Aasif Sultan, Sajad Gul, and Aala Fazili are behind bars for reporting from Jammu & Kashmir. Journalists Peerzada Ashiq and Gowhar Gilani, along with photojournalist Masrat Zahra were earlier booked by the police under the UAPA and other laws, accusing them of abetting terrorism.
The Union government has rejected the accusations levelled against it by international human rights organisations and journalists for allegedly trampling down on press freedom.
In a series of tweets, the Journalist Federation of Kashmir condemned Mehraj’s arrest. It concluded its tweet thread by saying, “For a vibrant press to flourish in a society, authorities have to move beyond hollow claims of respect for press freedom and work towards a conducive environment where a journalist can report the facts on ground, express opinion on social media without fear, threat of arrest.”
Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti criticised Mehraj’s arrest and lambasted the authorities for cracking the whip on journalists while giving a free hand to conmen like Kiran Bhai Patel, who posed as a senior officer of the Prime Minister’s Office and duped the security agencies since 2022. Patel reportedly enjoyed a Z-plus security cover and visited sensitive territories, including the forward areas of the Line of Control (LoC) that divides Indian and Pakistan-occupied Kashmiri territories.
“While conmen are given a free run in Kashmir, journalists like Irfan Mehraj are arrested for doing their duty by speaking the truth. Draconian laws like UAPA are abused constantly to ensure that the process itself becomes the punishment”, Mufti tweeted.
Irfan Mehraj was a former sub-editor of Rising Kashmir, whose chief editor Shujaat Bukhari was gunned down in Srinagar on June 14th 2018. He later founded Wande Magazine. He is also the editor of TwoCircles and he regularly contributes to publications like Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, The Caravan Magazine, etc.
