ISLAMABAD: A post-doctoral scholar at the University of Kashmir in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) has been arrested by the local forces’ State Investigation Agency, over an article he wrote for the Kashmir Walla, a Srinagar-based digital media outlet, whose editor Fahad Shah has been languishing in jail since February this year.
According to reporter, the arrest of Abdul Aala Fazili, a PhD scholar at the Kashmir University’s Pharmaceutical Department, comes days after a prominent law professor, Sheikh Showkat Hussain, was sacked as the principal of Kashmir Law College on charges of being a supporter of the liberation struggle in IIOJK.
According to reports, a team of J&K’s elite State Investigation Agency (SIA), which was formed last year, raided the residence of Aala in Humhama on the outskirts of Srinagar on, April 17. Simultaneous raids were carried out at Fahad’s residence and The Kashmir Walla office in Srinagar.
State Investigation Agency called Abdul Aala Fazili’s article titled ‘The Shackles of Slavery Will Break’, which was published by ‘The Kashmir Walla’ in November 2011, “seditious”.
In a statement, the agency said Aala was arrested in connection with FIR No. 01/2022 filed at JIC Police Station of SIA’s Jammu wing under Section 13 (advocating, abetting, advising or inciting unlawful activity) and Section 18 (sets out the quantum of punishment for involvement in such activity) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The agency has also invoked Section 121 (waging war against the Government of India), Section 124 (spreading disaffection against the government), Section 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) in the FIR, in which Fahad has been named as an accused.
It is the fourth FIR against The Kashmir Walla‘s editor, who has so far secured bail in two cases, and if convicted, he could spend life in jail.
The SIA spokesperson said the search teams seized “incriminating evidence, which includes computers, laptops and other digital equipments” during the raids at three places. Fahad is presently lodged at a jail in Kupwara.
Aala, who was a vocal voice in Kashmir’s human rights circuit before Article 370 was read down, had authored a piece titled ‘The Shackles of Slavery Will Break’ which was published by The Kashmiri Walla on November 6, 2011.
The SIA described the article as “highly provocative, seditious and intended to create unrest in Jammu and Kashmir” while adding that it was written “with the purpose of abetting the youth to take the path of violence”.
The article, written in the backdrop of three years of unrest between 2008 and 2010 in the Kashmir Valley which brought the international focus back on the Kashmir issue after years of uneasy calm, was published by the Srinagar-based media outlet with the disclaimer that “it does not necessarily reflect The Kashmir Walla’s editorial policy”.