Jailed leader Altaf Shah, the son-in-law of Hurriyat leder Syed Ali Shah Geelani passed away battling cancer while he was undergoing treatement at All India Institite of Medical Sciences.
Under Detention since 2017 in a militant funding case, Altaf Ahmed Shah (Funtoosh) was recently detected with renal cancer after he was shifted to a Delhi hospital, however, as per the familt the doctors at the hospital recommended that the separtist leader be shifted to another hospital. “He was shifted back to Tihar Jail,” his family said.
Earlier, his daughter had written a letter to the Prime Minister of India seeking his intervention in the deteriorating health of her father.
Seeking medical attention for her father, Ruwa Shah, a journalist by profession, who is also the granddaughter of deceased Hurriyat Leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani in her letter addressed to PM Modi and HM Amit Shah has said that the health of her father is deteriorating in Tihar.
She has claimed that Altaf Shah, her father, was taken to hospital after several requests to jail authorities to do so, however, when the doctors recommended that he be taken to another hospital, he was rather shifted back to the jail.
The National Investigation Agency in July 2017 arrested seven Kashmiri separatist leaders in connection with its probe into the “funding of militancy” and “subversive” activities in the Kashmir Valley.
The seven separatist leaders who were arrested include Naeem Khan, Bitta Karate, Ayaz Akbar, T Saifullah, Meraz Kalwal, Saheed Ul Islam and Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Altaf Fantosh.
Altaf Ahmed Shah is the third Hurriyat leader to have died under detention since the Indian Government unilateraly abrogated the special status of Jammu Kashmir.
G M BHAT
Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, a longtime prominent member of Hurriyat who was among the hundreds of people detained under a preventive detention law, the Public Safety Act (PSA), in the run-up to August 05 died in a Jail in Agra, where he was held captive. “Two policemen came to the Bhat’s home, informing his son that his father’s preventive detention has been quashed, because of an illness and he should go and bring him home,” his son, Hanif said.
The reasons behind Bhat’s death were not known. “The only illness the deceased ever suffered was limp in one leg caused by injuries inflicted during custodial torture by the army in 1993,” Hanif said.
Bhat was a resident of Kulangam village in Kupwara district presented himself before the local police post on July 17. A month later, his family was told that he had been taken to a faraway jail in Allahabad district, Uttar Pradesh state of India.
M. Ashraf Sehrai
After nearly nine months of detention under the Public Safety Act, Hurriyat stalwart, Mohammed Ashraf Sehrai in his late 70s passed away in Jammu’s Government Medical College (GMC), nearly 350 kilometers away from his home in Srinagar on May 05, 2021.
Ashraf as per his family was suffering from covid like symptoms when he was shifted to the GMC. However, they told The Kashmiriyat that he had been unwell for a long time now inside the jail.
In 2004, when the Hurriyat split into two, Ashraf Sehrai helped Geelani form his own faction and initially served as the General Secretary of the group. He later was elected as the chairman through a first-ever-election held by the party in 2018.
In the same year, his son Junaid Ashraf joined the militant outfit, Hizb ul Mujahideen. The then Director-General of Jammu Kashmir Police had asked Mr. Sehrai to appeal his son (Junaid) to return home. Upon which Mr. Sehrai responded, “Junaid Ashraf is a young and educated person, fully capable of taking decisions on his own”.
“He didn’t consult me before leaving his house. He opted for whatever he felt right for him,” he said. Asked whether he would call back his son as suggested by the director-general of police SP Vaid, Sehrai said, “See it is not just my son. There are sons of others out there. The blood of sons of others is equally important as that of my son. I can’t ask my son to return as he chose a path he thought is best for him.”
APHC in a statement while quoting family sources said that Sehrai Sahab was suffering from multiple ailments and despite repeated requests by the family that his health was deteriorating in jail, he was left unattended by the authorities till his condition worsened yesterday and he died.