NIA arrests Kashmiri Journalist in connection with alleged ‘militant funding’ case
Srinagar, Mar 21, KNT: A Kashmir-based Journalist was arrested by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on charges of militant funding.
The journalist in question is Irfan Mehraj.
Reports said that NIA raided his house in Srinagar uptown and arrested him.
Sources told news agency Kashmir News Trust that Irfan has been arrested in connection with an FIR lodged in 2020. The case is related to militant funding.
Pertinently, Human Rights activist Khuram Parvez was arrested in 2021 under the same FIR vide number 37/2020/NIA/DLI.
Irfan was formerly a researcher with Khurram’s human rights organization Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.
Suchitra Vijayan – The author of ‘Midnight’s Borders’ in a tweet informed that: Kashmiri journalist Irfan Meraj was arrested by the National Investigation Agency under draconian UAPA in Srinagar today. He has been moved to Delhi,” she said adding that Irfan is a reporter and the founding editor of Wande Magazine.
One of the journalists told news agency Kashmir News Trust that Irfan had worked at different media houses in Kashmir. He said currently Irfan is an Editor at TwoCircles.net.
Meanwhile, NIA in a statement said that following comprehensive investigations into the NGO militant funding case registered in October 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Irfan Mehraj from Srinagar.
NIA said that Irfan Mehraj was a close associate of Khurram Parvez and was working with his organization, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS). Investigation revealed that the JKCCS was funding militant activities in the valley and had also been in the propagation of secessionist agenda in the Valley under the garb of protection of human rights.
NIA further said that the involvement of some Valley-based NGOs, Trusts, and Societies in the funding of militant-related activities is being probed in this case. Some NGOs, both registered as well as unregistered, have come to notice collecting funds domestically and abroad under the cover of doing charity and various welfare activities, including Public Health, Education etc. But some of these organizations have developed links with proscribed militant organizations, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), etc. [KNT]
