Police and family members said that police picked up Khurram Parvez from his home in the region’s main city Srinagar late Thursday night.
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In a signed open letter, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Amitava Kumar, Teesta Setalvad, Dibyesh Anand, Gautam Navlakha and Kavita Krishnan among others said the right to freedom of speech and movement and the right to dissent and self-determination are being “imperiled” in the Valley.
He is also the chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) – a Manila based conglomerate of rights groups.
Khurram Pervez, coordinator of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), was on his way to Switzerland when immigration officials detained and blocked him from boarding his flight at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport. Police couldn’t be reached immediately for a comment.
The police officers allegedly did not give any reason when they took him away.
According to KMS, hundreds of people were injured yesterday when Indian troops used brute force to prevent people from staging demonstrations and conducting marches towards local grand mosques against civilian killings in the Occupied Kashmir.
At least 80 civilians have been killed and over 10,000 injured, by government forces firing bullets and pellets at stone and rock-throwing protesters. Kashmiri rights activists stand ready to assist the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in collecting facts on the ground in the disputed territory to help the United Nations deal with India, he added.
Parvez was to attend a United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland from September 14 to 24.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir since independence in 1947.
With the entire Kashmir Valley under a strict curfew, most people stayed indoors for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha on Tuesday.
The president of JKCCS, Parvez Imroz, slammed Parvez’s detention as an attempt to intimidate and restrain his human rights work.
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The U.N.’s top human rights official on Tuesday called for an global mission to be given free and complete access to both Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir to assess claims made by both sides about the recent unrest.
