Seher Shah, the daughter of illegally detained senior APHC leader Shabbir Ahmad Shah has written a letter to India’s top jail official conveying her deep concern about her father’s safety in Tihar jail after a murder caught on camera in the jail and witnessed by the Hurriyat leader from his cell.
Seher Shah in the letter emailed to the Director General of Prisons said, “The high-risk ward, where murder took place, which was captured on camera and shown on news networks, is where Shabbir Shah is being held.” Seher said that her father witnessed the murder from his cell. Shabbir Shah, according to her, is gravely troubled as a result of the murder. She wrote to the DG asking to see the video because the jail authorities watched the murder as a silent spectator. She also attached the video to the letter.
“Indian government claims that Tihar Jail’s 8 and 9 [units] are the most secure. The murder occurred in the same unit no. 8, and my father has been detained there,” she said. Seher said that she was now more worried about the safety of her father in the jail.
She urged the Indian government to send his father to a jail in Kashmir or treat him as a political prisoner. No charges against her father have yet been proven, according to Seher.
Shabbir Ahmad Shah is one of the senior Hurriyat leaders illegally detained in 2017. He is chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party.—KMS
