ON SUNDAY, the J&K State Investigation Agency (SIA), constituted to investigate militancy-related cases, arrested a Kashmiri scholar for his write-up published in 2011 by The Kashmiri Walla magazine.
The arrest was made after the SIA conducted raids on the office and house of arrested ‘The Kashmir Wallaeditor Fahad Shah in Srinagar’s Rajbagh and Soura area and the residence of scholar Abdul Aala Fazili in Humhama. Mr Fazili, who has a master’s in Pharmaceutics, is a PhD scholar in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at Kashmir University.
“The searches were conducted in connection with FIR No. 01/2022 under Section 13, 18 UA(P) Act read with sections 121, 124, 153 B and 120-B IPC of Police Station JIC (SIA) Jammu, against the author of seditious article Abdul Aala Fazili and the Editor and other associates of The Kashmir Wala,” an SIA spokesman said.
The SIA said the article titled ‘The shackles of slavery will break”, published on November 6, 2011, “is highly provocative, seditious and intended to create unrest in Jammu and Kashmir, written to abet the youth to take the path of violence by glorifying terrorism and on the other the write-up promoted and propagated the false narrative, which is essential to sustain secessionist cum terrorist campaign aimed at breaking the territorial integrity of India”.
The SIA said the article had used prescriptive language with instructional intent, encouraging secessionist elements to carry out terror activities. The SIA quoted a few excerpts, which read: “On the occasion of Eid ul Azha, let us all pledge in the name of the blood of our martyrs and tears of mothers and sisters: that we shall always remember their sacrifices, that we shall never stop our struggle for freedom.”
In another para, the author had written that there was no need to be anxiety and despair about the success of our freedom struggle. “I have this total and farthest belief; we will finally achieve freedom – Insha’Allah.” However, the SIA said the repeated reference to freedom and terror outfits’ rhetoric makes it amply clear that the article is not merely propaganda. “Rather, it is the articulation of Pakistan ISI and the vision of its sponsored terrorist secessionist networks,” it said.
