Ashraf Sehrai: A prominent Kashmir leader for freedom has died in prison in Kashmir News

Srinagar, Indian administered Kashmir – Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, Kashmir’s liberation leader in India, has died inside a hospital in southern Jammu after being detained for the past year. He was 77 years old.

An official at Jammu Government Medical College Hospital said the COVID-19 report is negative but has developed “respiratory stress”. In recent weeks there have been reports of coronavirus infections and deaths in India.

The Hurriyat Conference of the Parties (APHC), an amalgam of pro-freedom groups in the region, accused the authorities of not taking their health status seriously.

“Despite Covid’s disastrous catastrophe, despite repeated appeals for the release of political prisoners presented for humanitarian reasons in various prisons, the authorities are playing with their lives,” the document says.

Sehrai was the president of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, a pro-Kashmir freedom group that advocates for Kashmir to unite with neighboring Pakistan. He was arrested under the Citizens Security Act (PSA), a law that allows arrests without trial for a year.

Sehrai was a longtime deputy to Syed Ali Geelani, one of the most effective leaders of the Kashmir resistance who has been detained at home for many years.

Sehrai spent his entire life as a close aide to Geelani and their association was formed in the 1960s when they were local versions of Jamat-e-Islam, Ikhwan-ul-Muslims or the Muslim Brotherhood.

India on August 5, 2019, imprisoned thousands of Kashmiris, including prominent resistance leaders, as a result of the abolition of the limited autonomy of the Himalayan region. Currently the only Muslim region in India is directly run by the country’s Interior Ministry.

India has said it has held elections for local bodies in the region, but critics say local bodies have no legislative power.

Sehrai Junaid Ashraf’s young son was the commander-in-chief of Pakistan’s Hezbollah Mujahideen rebel outfit. Ashraf Srinagar was killed in a shooting in the main city in May 2019. Sehrai was arrested and jailed a few months later.

‘Unable to join’

Located in Udhampur prison, 200 km (124 miles) from his home, his family says they have not been able to see him for five months because prison meetings have been banned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mujahid Sehrai’s son said that yesterday evening the family was informed of his father’s state of health.

“We received a call that he was undergoing quiet movements and was taken to hospital. I booked tickets and arrived in Jammura in the afternoon. Since then, I have been waiting for the corpse and they have told us that they have to complete certain procedures. We could not see his face,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mujahideen said his father had many illnesses including bronchitis and that his condition had worsened in prison.

“We sent him medicine every month from home. We also filed a medical application in court and appealed for permission to receive medical treatment, but to no avail, ”he said.

Mujahideen said his father was allowed to call once a week but had not received a call for the past two weeks.

“The last time he spoke, he told us that he had pain in his body and felt weak. He was fasting and they were not getting proper food in prison, ”Mujahid said.

Last week, the wife of another imprisoned separatist leader, Ayaz Akbar, died of cancer at her home. Akbar, according to his family, was not allowed parole to attend his funeral.

With the spread of the second wave of the pandemic across India, the families of Kashmir prisoners in prisons in various parts of India are demanding the release of their relatives on parole, fearing for security.

Former regional chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has also called for the immediate release of political detainees.

“The minimum situation that the GOI can make is so dangerous that the conditional release of the detainees should be returned immediately to their families,” he tweeted in the wake of the death addressed to the Indian government in Sehrai.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), the regional body of lawyers, in a document, called it a “custodial death” and called for independence to investigate the case of Sehrai’s death.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the JKHCBA said it has filed three petitions before the court highlighting the seriousness of Sehrai’s heart disease. “Surprisingly, the three petitions were not ordered,” the document says, adding that the association is deeply concerned that the courts are informally dealing with “issues of freedom and judicial apathy”.