Shifting inmates to outside pure vengeance and violation of prisoners' rights: Jama’at-e-Islami

Srinagar: Jama’at-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir strongly denounces the plan of shifting of thirteen inmates lodged in the district jail, Kehribal Mattan Islamabad to the jails outside the valley and calls it an unwarranted action based on political bias and vengeance having no legal and moral justification. All these inmates are political detainees and are being shifting to outside jails for subjecting to suppression and physical and mental torture which is a blatant violation of the basic rights of prisoners under the international law to which India is also a signatory. These inmates were boarded in a police bus during the daytime but on strong protests from their close relatives they were again taken inside the Mattan jail to avoid the protest and during the night hours, they are likely to be shifted as scheduled.

Among those who apprehend shifting is one Peer Mohammad Ashraf of Batagund Verinag now languishing in the jails for more than fourteen years and has no legal trial pending against him and one Abrar Ahmad from Chowgam Qazigund district Kulgam who is suffering from a fatal disease and needs homely care and proper medical treatment which he is sure to be deprived of in an outside jail. In the jails outside the valley these Kashmiri political detainees are subjected to inhuman treatment by the jail authorities being mostly from the police department having neither any knowledge of the rights of the prisoners and detainees nor trained therefor. These officers are trained in handling the law and order situation but deputed in jails to deal a situation quite strange to them with the result these jails have virtually turned into the interrogation centers and police lock ups losing their basic concept of the correction centers. These officers maltreat and misbehave with these jail inmates thereby violating all jail rules and regulations written in the jail manuals and the local and international laws relating thereto.




Jama’at-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir while vehemently condemning the shifting of political prisoners and detainees to the jails outside the valley, appeals the International and local human rights institutions to take cognizance of these inhuman methods to suppress the jail inmates in this unfortunate part of the globe and take concrete steps to safeguard their rights guaranteed to them under the international conventions and local laws. Jama’at impresses upon the jail authorities to desist from intimidating these innocent detainees and provide them all facilities available to them under the jail manuals. Jama’at also demands unconditional release of all these political detainees and shifting of all those detained in the jails outside the valley including the Tihar jail, Delhi to the jails in the valley, particularly the DeM chief Asia Andrabi, her two colleagues Nahida Nasreen and Fahmeeda Sofi, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Muzaffar Ahmad Dar , Altaf Ahmad Shah, Peer Saifullah, Naeem Khan, Meraj-ud-Din Kalwal, Ayaz Akbar, Syed Javed Ahmad and his younger brother Shahid Yousuf , Adv. Shahid ul Islam and Zahoor Watali.




Advocate Zahid Ali

Chief Spokesperson

Jama’at-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir

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