By: ChandrashekarBhat
SENIOR People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra, a close aide of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, was an asset for Pakistan-based terror groups, Indian police authorities said in a charge-sheet filed against him in a Srinagar court.
His 13-year journey from 2007 as a journalist and politician was a “saga of subterfuge, deceit and double dealing”, according to the charges.
Parra is alleged to have set up a link with terrorists for political gains and reciprocated by providing help and support which led to terror strikes, Indian authorities say.
With help from five protected witnesses and technical intelligence, the Criminal Investigation Kashmir (CIK) submitted the charge-sheet before a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court recently. The allegation is that Parra was hand-in-glove with terrorists to further the agenda of Pakistan-based terror groups and to ensure that his political adversaries were “neutralised”.
The 19-page charge-sheet, with hundreds of pages of annexures, lists instances of his targeted attempts to eliminate political opponents and help his party leaders by paying terror groups to swing electoral battles in his party’s favour.
His lawyer has denied all the charges during court proceedings related to his bail and custodial pleas and claimed that his client, who won the district development council elections last year, was being made a political scapegoat.
The charge-sheet highlighted Parra’s alleged links to Pakistan-trained Abu Dujana and Abu Qassim, who were killed in separate encounters with security forces.
A forced marriage between a girl and dreaded Pakistani terrorist Abu Dujana had Parra’s “blessings”, the charge-sheet claimed.
Police tracked his journey from 2007 when he travelled to Pakistan and interviewed banned Hizbul Mujahideen’s chief Syed Salahuddin and broadcast it on his local media channel which was being operated from Pulwama, his home district, in south Kashmir.
Parra joined the PDP in 2013 and “once ensconced in the safety of a recognised political party…, the accused systematically went about strengthening himself by craftily deepening his roots on two sides of the divide – India and Pakistan”.
“…Parra had the permission of the Pakistani establishment to keep throwing crumbs at India, allowing them petty tactical gains and systematically pushing the overall situation, slowly but surely, in favour of Pakistan in a strategic sense. What played out over 13 years (2007-2020) was a saga of subterfuges, deceit and double meaning,” the charge-sheet alleged.
Parra, arrested in November last year, was granted bail in January. He was again arrested and continues to be in jail since then.
