Taking strong exception to the detained lone AAP MLA Mehraj Malik having been paraded in handcuffs in the hospital in Kathua where he was taken for a medical checkup on Thursday, the CPI(M) MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami on Friday asked the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and members of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to come out with a strong statement and demand an apology from the concerned authorities.
Videos of Malik being paraded in handcuffs in the hospital have gone viral and the issue has snowballed into a controversy with several netizens calling handcuffing of an elected MLA ‘disgraceful’. Others criticised the authorities for taking him to the hospital in a manner as if Malik was a hardened terrorist.
Malik has been lodged in the Kathua jail since 8 September, when he was taken into custody under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA). The Jammu and Kashmir High Court is scheduled to conduct a final hearing into the habeas corpus petition of Malik on 18 December.
Police and jails in J&K are under the charge of Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha and not under the elected government headed by CM Omar Abdullah.
Tarigami told media-persons here that handcuffing Malik was a sheer humiliation for the legislators and the law. “Those who ordered the handcuffing of Malik should apologise”, he said.
Tarigami said many other people are also detained under the PSA, that is a draconian law which was being misused to suppress the voice of the people, he alleged.
He demanded those detained under the PSA and transferred to prisons across the country should be brought back to J&K as their relatives were not in a position to travel to far-off places to meet them.
Tarigami said that the ailing Shabir Shah should be shifted to Srinagar from the Tihar Jail.
Meanwhile, addressing the Friday congregation at Srinagar’s Jama Masjid, the chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that individuals being arrested in connection with decades-old cases have triggered anxiety among the people in Kashmir.
Mirwaiz said already thousands of Kashmiri prisoners are languishing in jails in and outside J&K, some for decades, causing immense suffering to their families. Arresting more and more people only adds to the woes and pain of Kashmiris.
Drawing attention to the serious humanitarian and legal concerns arising from the continued detention of Kashmiris in prisons outside the Union Territory, Mirwaiz said that such practices often result in delays in trial proceedings and severely limit family access, running contrary to basic principles of humane treatment and natural justice.
Urging the State Government to intervene, Mirwaiz called for a review of the handling of such old cases and appealed for the transfer of detainees back to Jammu & Kashmir to ensure a fairer, faster, and more compassionate process of justice. He also appealed to them to intervene and stop the continuing process of arrests and detention of individuals who have moved on and are not associated with any form of violence in decades.