Kashmiri inmates’ traumatized, humiliated in jails: Malik

Srinagar, Oct 1: Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik on Monday said that Kashmiri inmates are being ‘traumatized, tortured and humiliated’ by authorities.
“Jails have been turned into torture centers where respect for life and human dignity stands at its lowest,” Malik said in a statement issued.
Terming the plight of Kashmiri inmates as ‘worst kind of human and prison rights’, Malik said that “the Judicial remand of three ailing women inmates Syeda Asiya Andrabi, Nahida Nasreen and Fahmida Sofi who are languishing in Tihar Jail has been extended by thirty more days.”
“The proceeding of the case is being done through video conferencing and height of the apathy is that despite being ill, these inmates are not being provided with any sort of medical aid or facility,” he said.
JKLF chief said that similarly JKLF leaders and activists’ lifer Nazir Ahmad Sheikh along with Siraj Ud din Mir, Zahoor Ahmad Butt, Abdul Rashid Magloo, Assadullah Sheikh and Ghulam Nabi Kashmiri who are languishing in outside Kashmir Jails under PSA are also being denied proper medical facilities and rulers are using every tactic to prolong their incarceration.
He said that many young boys including Aadil Siraj Misgar, Davood Fayaz Zargar, Juwaiz Hassan Khan, Arooj Aafaq Bhat , Iqbal Ahmad Khan, Arsalan Mushtaq Bangri , Seerat ul Hassan , Sheikh Khalid Rasool , Imran Nabi Wani , Owaise Muneer Bhat , Danish Rahim Mir, Sameer Ahmad Khan , Danish Ayoub Badoo, Musawir Ahmad Bhat, Bashir Ahmad Bhat and Moeen Mushtaq Wani who are facing a concocted trail of DySp lynching are also facing this apathy as police and authorities are using every method to prolong their incarceration and inflict more harm to them and their families.
Malik said that Kashmiris are facing worst apathy in Indian jails like Tihar jail, Mandawali Jail Delhi and jails of Jammu Kashmir including Udhampor jail, Khutua Jail, Hiranagar jail, Amphala jail Jammu, Srinagar central jail, Mattan Jail, Baramullah Jail, Kupwara jail, Kot-Balwal jail and other incarceration centers.
He said that “India being a signatory to the Geneva Convention on prisoners was supposed to adhere to the international law but contrary to this, India is employing every oppressive means to inflict more and more harm to these inmates and suppressing them ruthlessly.”
Malik said that torturing inmates, putting them in solitary confinements and cells, humiliating their visitors have become common practice of authorities in jails.
While condemning the use of black laws and evil tactics to prolong the incarceration of these inmates, Malik said that slapping repeated PSA’s, employing police tactics to prolong incarceration of prisoners, using agencies like NIA, ED to put Kashmiris in Indian jails, shifting lifers and other detainees from Kashmiri jails to jails in Jammu, denying proper medical facilities’ to inmates, torturing, beating, putting them into solitary confinements, keeping them naked inside prison cells, humiliating and torturing their kith and kin who come to see them at jails and other incarceration centers and other oppressive measures like these have become a routine in Jammu Kashmir and it is the obligation of the international community, human rights organizations, civil societies, International Red cross (ICRC) and others to take note of this , intervene to safeguard the rights of these prisoners of conscience and use their good offices to get them released from incarceration.