In occupied Kashmir, the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Gilani, has expressed serious concern over the ill-treatment meted out to the Kashmiri political prisoners especially those lodged in Tihar Jail of New Delhi.
Syed Ali Gilani in a statement issued in Srinagar urged the South Asian chief of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the world bodies of human rights to use their good offices to end the long and continued illegal detention of these political detainees. Despite being political prisoners they are kept in a very humiliating condition, he deplored.
Referring to the recent report from Tihar jail, he said from the last week of December 2018 all the Kashmiri and Pakistani prisoners are shifted to jail No 8/9 and kept in a two-storey building of ward No 12, which is devoid of any ventilation or sunlight, making the poor inmates to shiver in this chilling cold of winter. He said the prisoners repeatedly requested the jail authorities to allow them to move out in the lawn in front of the bark, but instead of allowing them to do so, they imposed more restrictions on them.
The APHC Chairman said that the authorities intended to bring in more convicts, which would make the Kashmiri prisoners’ life more miserable. He said list of relatives to meet the detainees is also curtailed, which deprives them of meeting their relatives. The food and drinking water supplied is also unhygienic and below standard, by which many prisoners are suffering from various health issues and sick prisoners are left to battle for their life as no proper medical care is provided to them, he lamented.
Syed Ali Gilani said doctors and other health officials posted in the jail come for their duties but don’t show their faces for months. He said even some lab investigations are performed on court orders but their reports are withheld for unknown reasons and poor prisoners don’t even know what these reports are.
He said these inhuman actions by the authorities are deliberate attempt to physically and psychologically harm and torture these prisoners. He said this biased and revengeful attitude of the fascist authorities is just to satisfy the collective conscience of their vote bank even at the cost of such humanitarian tragedy.
