Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez released from prison

Prominent Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez was released from prison in Jammu on Wednesday after spending 76 days in detention following the Jammu and Kashmir high court quashing his imprisonment under the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA).

On Friday, Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar in his order said Parvez’s detention was “illegal”.

Shortly after his release, Parvez took to social media to update his status.

“He is in good health and spirits. He expresses his overwhelming gratitude to the local and international solidarity campaign for his release,” Parvez’s organisation the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) said in a statement.

The activist is scheduled to reach Srinagar tomorrow

Despite the court order on Friday, Parvez continued to be in jail as the order had a minor “clerical error” regarding a date for which a corrigendum had to be submitted to the court and a correction made.

On Tuesday, the corrected copy of the order of the high court was served to the jail authorities at Kot Bhalwal prison in Jammu.

But, the JKCCS had said in a statement, he was not released and was taken to the joint interrogation centre at Meeran Sahib, Jammu.

Parvez has been the most prominent face of human rights movement in Kashmir in recent times and his arrest under the controversial PSA has attracted both national and international condemnation and raised questions on the state’s procedures to tackle unrest.

Parvez and his organisation the JKCCS, have played a key role in documenting and reporting the violations of human rights in troubled Kashmir.

He was picked up by the police on September 15 in Srinagar, a day after he was stopped from travelling to Geneva to participate in a UN Human Rights Council session.

On September 20, principal district and sessions judge, Srinagar, Rashid Ali Dar, had ordered Parvez’s release from a sub-jail in Kupwara and said that the earlier order for his detention was not “in accordance with the law”.

But the state had, instead, charged him under the PSA and shifted him to Kot Bhalwal prison.

Read | Rights activist Khurram Parvez’s arrest opens up can of worms