The recent Kashmir Times article, "From Tihar to Open-Air Prison: Unfinished Freedom of Khurram and Irfan," tells a story that extends well beyond the fate of two Kashmiri human rights defenders. It compels us to ask a fundamental question: does bail or release from prison genuinely restore freedom?
For many in Kashmir, the answer is increasingly no.
Prison no longer ends when the gates open. Formal incarceration often gives way to a different form of confinement, one marked by surveillance, restrictions on movement, intimidation and the constant possibility of being taken back into custody. It is this lived reality that has led many Kashmiris to describe the Valley as an "open-air prison."
Reading about Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj inevitably brought back memories of my own detention after August 5, 2019. My imprisonment lasted four months, while theirs has stretched into years. Our legal circumstances are different, and I do not seek to compare the magnitude of our experiences. Yet the underlying pattern remains strikingly similar: detention functioning not merely as a legal process but as an instrument of political control.
After several months in detention, I was released, but only under restrictive conditions. I was required to remain in Srinagar and was not free to travel. It was liberty in form rather than in substance.
I never went to Srinagar, as after my release my case was heard in the Supreme Court of India, where they withdrew the whole case altogether.
During my detention, my wife had challenged my incarceration before the apex court. The authorities appeared to believe that once I was released, I would withdraw the petition.
I chose not to.
Accepting my release in exchange for abandoning the legal challenge would, in my view, have legitimised an arbitrary detention that should never have occurred. The case therefore continued.
At the next hearing, the government withdrew the cases initiated against me and released me without conditions.
I cannot state with certainty why events unfolded in that manner. However, I remain convinced that sustained international attention, including advocacy by members of the United States Congress, the Kashmiri diaspora and international human rights advocates, played an important role. Whether that can ever be conclusively established is another matter, but it remains my understanding of the circumstances surrounding my release.
That experience has left me with a question that continues to trouble me.
If international attention could contribute to my release, why has it not secured similar relief for Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj?
It is certainly not because the world has ignored them. United Nations human rights experts, respected international human rights organisations and civil society groups have repeatedly expressed concern over their continued detention. Their cases have become internationally recognised symbols of the shrinking civic space in Kashmir.
Yet expressions of concern have not translated into sustained political or diplomatic engagement capable of securing their freedom.
The issue, therefore, is not whether the international community is aware of their plight. It is whether the defence of human rights still carries sufficient weight when weighed against strategic and geopolitical interests.
This question reaches far beyond two individuals.
Longterm Consequences
When journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, academics and civil society activists spend years in prison while legal proceedings continue, the consequences are felt throughout society.
The message extends to everyone else: documenting abuses, defending constitutional rights or questioning official narratives may itself invite criminal prosecution. The objective is no longer limited to punishing individuals. It also serves to discourage others from exercising the same freedoms.
Since the constitutional changes of 5 August 2019, many Kashmiris believe that extraordinary legal and security measures have gradually become embedded within ordinary governance. Preventive detention, prolonged investigations, stringent anti-terror laws, restrictions on movement and pervasive surveillance increasingly appear less like exceptional responses and more like permanent features of public administration.
In such an environment, liberty itself becomes conditional. Freedom is transformed from a constitutional guarantee into something that can be granted, restricted or withdrawn at the discretion of the state.
The phrase "open-air prison" is therefore not simply rhetorical. It reflects a condition in which people may not be behind bars yet continue to live within invisible limits defined by uncertainty, fear and the ever-present possibility of renewed detention.
My own experience also reinforced another uncomfortable truth. In a society governed by the rule of law, liberty should depend upon independent judicial protection and due process, not upon political calculations or the degree of international attention that a particular case receives. No citizen should require intervention from abroad to obtain rights that ought to be protected by the Constitution and the courts.
Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj have today come to represent something much larger than their individual cases. Their continued incarceration reflects the narrowing space available for independent journalism, human rights advocacy and peaceful civic engagement in Kashmir. Their unfinished freedom mirrors a broader struggle for justice, accountability and democratic rights.
Ultimately, the question before us is not simply whether two individuals deserve to be free.
It is whether a democracy can genuinely claim to uphold liberty when dissent is criminalised, freedom remains conditional and prolonged detention itself becomes a punishment before guilt has been established in a court of law.
Freedom cannot be measured merely by the opening of prison gates.
It must also be measured by whether those who walk out are free to travel, speak, write, advocate and seek justice without fear of returning to prison.
Until that day arrives, the distance between a prison cell and an open-air prison will remain tragically small, not only for Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, but for countless Kashmiris whose lives continue to be shaped by extraordinary state power.
Have you liked the news article?