KL Report
SRINAGAR
Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) have reportedly let loose a reign of terror in India’s Tihar Jail. Kashmiri prisoners there have been facing relentless atrocities. In an open letter to his family from Tihar Jail, a Kashmiri inmate Muzaffar Ahmed Dar of Chichilora Tangmarag in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district has narrated detailed ordeal about Kashmiri prisoners in the jail.
A copy of the letter with CNS reveals that criminals, rapists, dacoits of other states lodged in the jail avail all kinds of facilities while Kashmiri inmates shut up in the jail for alleged anti-India activities are not only harassed but also given a cruel treatment.
Dar who was arrested for his alleged affiliation with militant outfit Hizbul Mujhadeen from Sadrabal Hazratbal area of Srinagar city in April 2009 has written that TSP on the directions of Tihar Jail authorities care a fig of law and Jail rules and these men always force Kashmiri prisoners to lick their boots.
“On 8 April 2015, all the Kashmiri prisoners present in High Risk Ward were forcibly separated from one another and shifted to separate narrow and dark cells. The doors of these cells were locked suddenly and opened only after over a week.”
Dar has written that Kashmiri prisoners are being treated like animals in the jail. “The jail authorities charge money from us to read the newspapers every morning but we are not allowed now to go through any news paper. We are not given any facility now, even ailing Kashmiri inmates are not taken to hospitals.”
“On 10 April Tamil Nadu Special Police suddenly raided our cells, ransacked our items including books and seized everything. Even our medicines and utensils were snatched from us. Some of our items were given back to us, after we went on a hunger strike.”
“On April 11, I was suddenly shifted to Jail number 8 of Tihar against the orders of the doctor. Tamil Nadu Special Police raided my cell again and seized all the items again. Despite suffering from multiple ailments, Jail authorities do not provide me standard medicines. Doctors had advised me take boiled water but instead Kashmiri prisoners are given a mixture of saline and sweetened water. The Jail authorities submitted a false report in the court, claiming that inmates are taken to hospitals on routine basis but the fact is that I was never taken to any hospital,” Dar writes and adds that jail authorities refused to provide him an electric kettle for water boiling purpose. “Here in Tihar Jail criminals, rapists and dacoits are permitted to avail every kind of facility but same is not the case with Kashmiri prisoners.”
Dar who was shifted to Tihar from Srinagar Central Jail in 2014 on the directions of National Investigating Agency (NIA) said that for 20 days at a stretch he was kept in solitary confinement in BSF camp Chawla House where due to consumption of filthy water, he developed several ailments.
The family members of Dar castigated People’s Democratic Party for making false promises to the people of Kashmir. “We voted for the PDP with a hope that it will shift all the Kashmiri prisoners to Srinagar from different Indian jails, but contrary has been happening on the ground now. Instead of acting in the interest of people, it is adding to the woes of the people,” the brother of Dar Irfan Hussain told CNS.
The Tangmarag family also castigated separatist leaders and alleged these Hurriyat leaders have disappointed the people whose loved ones have been languishing in Indian jails as according to the family no Hurriyat organization ever made a serious attempt to bring back the Kashmiri prisoners back to Kashmir. “The politics of these Hurriyat leaders is confined to the press statements but on ground their contribution towards the nation is zero,” the family said adding that they have sold a piece of land to pay to the lawyer in New Delhi.
