Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir — For a month in 2020, 33-year-old Waheed-ur-Rehman Para was imprisoned in a dark, underground cell in the Indian capital, where he was beaten with rods, stripped naked, and hung upside down after the country’s premier investigation agency accused him of aiding anti-India rebels.
In the dim light, he would touch the names of other Kashmiris — scratched on the walls — who had been held in the New Delhi cell before him. At his lowest points, Para would close his eyes and recall the summer of 2018 when he stood in front of 3,000 people, next to Rajnath Singh, then India’s home minister, who hailed him as a youth icon of Indian democracy.
