The police authorities, under LG Minhaj Sinha, have shifted over a dozen Kashmiri political prisoners from Indian illegally occupied  Jammu and Kashmir to different jails in India.  According to Kashmir Media Service, over a dozen political prisoners, including Hurriyat leaders Muhammad Rafiq Gania and Sadullah Parrey have been shifted  from Kot Bhalwal Jail, Jammu, Rajouri district jail and Srinagar Central Jail and from other sub jail to Indian jails of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds  of Kashmiri prisoners, including APHC leaders, are detained in New Delhi’s Tihar jail, Agra Central Jail, UP’s Naini jail, Haryana’s Rohtak Jail, Karnal  jail, Mumbai, Bangeluru and Rajishtan’s Central Jail Jodhpur of India. 

According to the World Prison Brief, India currently has the sixth highest share of pre-trial detainees in the world. According to available data, India  currently has a very high share of pre-trial detainees in the world, often ranking among the top countries with the largest proportion of people held in  pre-trial detention; with reports stating it has one of the highest shares globally, particularly within the Commonwealth nations.

India has the largest  share of pre-trial detainees around 77.1% as of October 2023 data said.  As of 2022, more than 75 percent of the total prisoners in India were detained without sentence from the court of law. Meanwhile, the All Parties Hurriyat  Conference spokesman, Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas, in a statement in Srinagar denounced the BJP-led regime in IIOJK for shifting illegally detained  Kashmiris from the occupied territory to the various Indian jails.   

He said that the shifting Kashmiri detainees to the Indian jails hundreds and thousands of miles away from their homes was the worst display of victimization  to punish the freedom and peace loving Kashmiris for challenging political injustice, atrocities and India’s illegal occupation of their homeland. He said  such anti Kashmir tactics of the communal LG regime cannot subdue the Kashmiris’ resolve for freedom and they will continue their struggle till complete success. Most of these detained youth have been slapped with draconian laws, Public Safety Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)