Kashmiri leadership in Indian jails: Pakistan concerned over deteriorating health condition

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday expressed deep concerns over deteriorating health condition of incarcerated Kashmiri leadership in Indian jails and called upon the international community and human rights bodies to take notice of the Indian government's inhuman treatment of the Kashmiri leaders, and raise voice for their immediate release from illegal detention.

"Pakistan is deeply concerned over the continued incarceration and deteriorating health conditions of Kashmiri leaders including founding leader of Kashmiri organization 'Dukhtaran-i-Millat' and the 'Iron Lady of Kashmir', Asiya Andrabi; leader and founder of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Shabbir Ahmed Shah; and prominent leaders such as Yasin Malik; Masarat Alam Bhat; Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie and others, who have been languishing under squalid conditions in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in infamous Tihar and other jails," Foreign Office said in a statement.

It noted that many other senior Kashmiri leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq remain under house arrest.

"These Kashmiri leaders have been illegally arrested over malicious, false and fabricated charges by the Indian government through invoking draconian laws promulgated in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK)," the statement added.

It stated that imprisonment and torturing of Kashmiri leaders on the basis of their political ideology and struggle against illegal Indian occupation is a true reflection of the extremist mindset of the RSS-BJP regime, which has no respect for the human rights of the Kashmiri people.

"Pakistan calls upon the international community, particularly the United Nations, ICRC and human rights and humanitarian organisations, to take notice of the Indian government's inhuman treatment of the Kashmiri leaders and raise its voice for their immediate release from illegal Indian detention," it added.

In April this year, the International Federation for Human Rights - FIDH asked Modi government to release all arbitrarily detained Kashmiri prisoners.

"While recent steps taken by Indian authorities to decongest prisons in an effort to contain the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak are welcomed, the government should release all unjustly detained prisoners as a matter of priority," the FIDH said in a statement released simultaneously from Geneva, Paris, and New Delhi on April 6, 2020.

"Inmates and prison staff, who live in confined spaces and in close proximity with others, remain extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. While the rest of the country is instructed to respect social isolation and hygiene rules, basic measures like hand washing - let alone physical distancing - are just not possible for prisoners...Under international law, India has an obligation to ensure the physical and mental health and well-being of inmates.

However, with an occupancy rate of over 117 percent, precarious hygienic conditions and inadequate health services, the overcrowded Indian prisons constitute the perfect environment for the spread of coronavirus," it asserted.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020