Srinagar: Noted Indian human rights activist and outspoken advocate of Kashmir’s independence, Gautam Navlakha, was on Saturday detained at the Srinagar airport to deny him entry to the valley, with the police saying that ‘his presence was not required here.’
A co-convenor of the International People’s Tribunal on Justice and Human Rights in Kashmir (IPTK), which among other cases has strongly contested the government’s investigations into the Shopian tragedy of exactly two years ago, Navlakha was barred entry when he arrived from New Delhi with a friend at around 1:50 pm, the authorities invoking section 144 of the Criminal Procedure and citing law and order reasons.
The ITPK said that he had been taken to some undisclosed location as no outgoing flights were available by the time authorities finalized decisions for his return, and would be allowed to go back on May 30.
Navlakha described his detention as outrageous, saying that authorities here were not willing to listen to reason.
“This shows the level of control they exercise on people,” he told reporters over phone.
“The police offered to send me back in their own vehicle, but I refused, saying that I was not a criminal,” he said.
A frequent visitor to Kashmir in the past two decades, Navlakha said that had come for trekking and not for work on this occasion, the first time ever he was stopped from entering the city.
28/05/11 Kashmir Observer
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