Al-Qalam 
The South Africa Kashmiri Action Group (SAKAG) says if no action is taken against Narendra Modi when he arrives for the BRICS summit next week, it plans to stage protests across the country, writes Nabeelah Shaikh.
Plans to have Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrested when he visits the country for the BRICS Summit are at an ‘advanced stage’ according to the South Africa Kashmiri Action Group (SAKAG).
SAKAG and the Muslim Lawyers Association approached the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in June, calling for a warrant of arrest to be issued against Modi when he arrives in the country next week. They’re calling for Modi’s arrest over a series of ongoing war crimes, and human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
“In a fresh 600-page submission, several prima facie witnesses and 200 First Information police reports from Indian-occupied Kashmir contain detailed evidence of abduction, tortures, rapes, extra-judicial killings, arson attacks, and illegal arrests of political leaders and innocent civilians,” said SAKAG founder, Salman Khan.
He said the dossier contains copies of case files related to allegations of serious human rights violations by the Indian Army, cases and indictments not properly investigated according to law by the Indian government, as well as details of mechanisms that allow crimes to be ignored. It also contains detailed records of numerous large-scale massacres, in addition to regular extra-judicial killings, including the Gaw Kadal (Srinagar) massacre of around 50 people.
Khan said the defining feature of human rights violations in the last 22 years in Jammu and Kashmir has been that the Indian armed forces have leveraged “counter-terrorism” to possible war crimes with impunity.
“When survivors have approached the authorities to investigate, they have used “counter-terrorism” to ineffectively address possible war crimes and to disregard the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” said Khan.
He pointed out that South Africa was the ideal ground to take action against Modi.
“It is a historic case. Despite Kashmir being illegally occupied for 76 years, nobody in the world has gone to these lengths to get Modi prosecuted for these human rights violations – and we are doing this right here from South Africa, the land of human rights champions,” said Khan.
Khan said the South African government has acted on previous complaints.
“In 2018, the NPA and DPCI, through Interpol, took the initiative of requesting Indian authorities to indicate whether they are investigating the allegations against Modi domestically.
Significantly, the SAPS requested that if they were not investigating these allegations, whether an international investigations team in the SAPS could, under jurisdiction through the Rome Statute, travel to the respective countries to conduct investigations. Interpol India refused to cooperate, citing issues of sovereignty,” said Khan.
He said SAKAG and the MLA were hoping to get feedback from the NPA this week after a recent meeting with officials.
“It took us a long time to travel and get the evidence from Indian-occupied Kashmir and all the other international sources. And we managed to gather very good sources, firsthand information, video-recorded messages, and digitalised information. We had that evidence presented by someone of Kashmiri origin who was in South Africa. I can’t give the public their name, so as to not jeopardize their safety, but they provided the evidence in front of a panel of Hawks special investigators,” said Khan.
He added that the NPA has assigned this case to a Hawks special unit which is tasked with investigating high-profile cases.
“Now we are waiting for the NPA to give us a ruling this week. We have made it very clear that they must give us a fair hearing and say they are either issuing the warrant of arrest or that they cannot do it because of the political pressure due to South Africa’s relations and the BRICS conference,” said Khan.
