Islamabad
Voicing concern over the continued detention and declining health condition of the incarcerated Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Shabir Ahmed Shah, the party’s acting chairman, Mehmood Ahmad Saghar has urged world human rights bodies to ensure early release of detained Hurriyat leader and other political activists, languishing in various jails in and outside Kashmir.
In a statement issued in Islamabad on Tuesday, the DFP leader while condemning the Indian government’s authoritarian mindset said that the BJP government was hell bent on choking every voice of dissent in Kashmir.
“Wholesale detentions of top rank Hurriyat leaders is part of the Modi government’s nefarious game plan to suppress the Kashmiris’ ongoing struggle for right to self-determination”, he said.
Saghar said, “Shah, declared as the Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in early 1990s, had spent over 34 years in jails just for his political beliefs.”
He maintained that from 2011 to March 2016, Shah was either detained or placed under house detention.
Terming Shabbir Shah’s continued detention as illegal Saghar said that the DFP chief was being punished for his role in the ongoing freedom struggle.
He said that the world human rights organizations must come forward and play their much-needed role to ensure early release of incarcerated leaders and other political activists, languishing in various jails in and outside Kashmir.—INP
