Geelani to ICRC : ‘Use your good offices to free Kashmiri prisoners’

Srinagar, Jan 28: Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani on Monday while condemning the plight of Kashmiri prisoners at Tihar Jail appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to use its good offices to end the ‘long and continued custody of these political prisoners.’
In a statement issued here, Geelani said despite being political prisoners “they are kept in a very humiliating condition and kept with criminals and other social convicts.”
“From the last week of December 2018 all the Kashmiri and Pakistani prisoners were shifted to jail no 8/9 and kept in a two story building of ward no 12, which is devoid of any ventilation or sunlight, making the poor inmates to shiver in this chilling cold of winter,” he said.
He said the prisoners repeatedly requested the jail authorities to allow them to move out in the lawn in front of the barrack, but the authorities imposed more restrictions.
“The food and drinking water supplied is also unhygienic and below standard, due to which many prisoners are suffering from various health issues and sick inmates are left to battle for their life as no proper medical care is provided to them,” the Hurriyat chairman said.
He alleged that these inhuman actions by the authorities are a deliberate attempt to physically and psychologically harm the prisoners.