The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted raids and detained and questioned several mainstream political leaders since May 2017 in a terror funding matter. But the case against the high-flying Waheedur Rehman Para, is for the first time ever that a chargesheet with alleged involvement in a terror case has been filed against someone close to a former Chief Minister.
This is also for the first time that a former CM has been alleged to have spoken to a top-ranking militant commander over telephone.
Perceived to be close to some militant and separatist leaders, Waheedur Rehman Para of the militant-infested Pulwama district was included as the youngest member of Ram Jethmalani’s Kashmir Committee-II when he was just in his early 20s. It eventually paved the way for his entry into the PDP. His grandfather Abdul Rehman Para had worked with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in Congress party.
Para did his masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at Islamic University of Science and Technology in Awantipora and was awarded a peace scholarship by the SIT Graduate Institute, Vermont USA. In PDP, Para was appointed as a spokesperson and President of the party’s youth wing.
Para was made to clear out from Rajpora Pulwama and help a fresh political entrant Haseeb Drabu to contest and win the Assembly elections for the PDP in 2014. He was too young to be an MLC or Minister. But in gaining proximity to Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti, he outsmarted all but the astute bureaucrat-turned-political Naeem Akhtar.
Para handled the PDP’s election campaigns in 2014-19, playing a key role in Drabu’s victory in 2014 as well as in Mehbooba’s own victory in the by-election for the Assembly segment of Anantnag in June 2016. The ruling party managed to send him on foreign tours, even as he arranged for meetings of celebrities, including Zaira Waseem, with Mehbooba.
While continuing as President of the PDP’s youth wing and working with CM’s Secretariat as an advisor, in 2016 Para was appointed as Secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir Sports Council where he organised events under the Union Sports Ministry’s flagship programme ‘Khelo India’ across Jammu and Kashmir for over two years. On at least one occasion, he organised a massive welcome for the then Union Home and the now Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, winning his public praise.
Para was among the Kashmiri mainstream leaders who were arrested on 4 August 2019 ahead of abrogation of Article 370 and detained for several months. After his release, he was on the forefront of an electoral alliance of the National Conference (NC), PDP and some other parties and accompanied Omar Abdullah on a visit to Ladakh.
Arrested by the NIA on 25 November 2020, Para contested and won the DDC elections for the PDP while in jail. After the exit of over 20 senior leaders, Para was emerging stronger in the party—sometimes stronger than Akhtar.
However, Para’s run as the poster boy of the PDP now appears to have come to an end. In its chargesheet, actually a supplementary chargesheet against the dismissed and detained DSP Davinder Singh and his Hizbul Mujahideen contacts, the NIA has levelled serious charges against Para. It has claimed to possess evidence of the telephonic conversations between Para, Davinder Singh and the actors of a Hizb module who included cop-turned-terrorist Syed Naveed Mushtaq, his brother and six others. Establishment of charges against Para would mean his rigorous imprisonment for several years.
