Special Bulletin: Diaspora Kashmiri Leaders Targeted Under Sedition Charges For Criticism of Indian Policies

Following the abrogation of special status that accorded the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir its autonomous status, the Indian state has accelerated the process of colonization and silencing of people of Kashmir Valley by hounding Kashmiri social media activists, human rights advocates, lawyers, intellectual and professionals who dare to challenge the fascist regime on public platforms with sedition acts, unlawful detentions and so forth. This now extends to those in the diaspora. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in accordance with the Home Ministry and External affairs are on a large move to work with forces such as Interpol, foreign governments to deport activists working in their countries back to India so they can be booked under sedition charges.

The charges of these likes, for example have already been exacted in case of prominent Kashmiri voices, including those of Saudi Arabia based Kashmiri doctor, Dr Asif Maqbool Dar (now in UAE), accused of unlawful activity for calling out the Indian government for its continued military occupation of Kashmir. 

Besides Dar, Riffat Wani, a Germany based Kashmiri social media activist was booked with charges has had her family interrogated and harassed in Kashmir by the Indian state as well as Malaysia based Kashmiri business tycoon Mubeen Ahmed Shah, who has been booked for sedition and provocation charges over a Facebook post criticizing the new domicile laws that grant land rights to Indians in Kashmir, a part of the settler colonial project of the Indian state aimed at changing the demography of the Muslim majority Kashmir. 

Besides, the identification of threats to the fascist Indian regime as ’anti national elements’, arrests have begun to be made in case of Muneeb Ahmad Sofi, a Kashmiri working in Qatar, who was deported and arrested in India on account of links with militant organizations, while his family has denied all the claims to be false and fictitious.

Indian state is on a move to identify individuals challenging the fascist government in not just Kashmir, or India but in other nations as well. This implicates the severity with which the Hindutva based party is extending its censorship designs among other measures.