- Altaf Ahmad Shah passed away while being held in captivity.
- He was a well-known advocate for freedom from Kashmir.
- Shah, 66, was detained in the maximum-security Tihar jail in New Delhi.
Altaf Ahmad Shah, a well-known advocate for freedom from Kashmir that is ruled by India, passed away while being held in captivity, according to his family.
For the previous five years, Shah, 66, had been detained in the maximum-security Tihar jail in New Delhi, the capital of India. He passed away early on Tuesday morning while receiving care at a local, government-run medical college.
Shah’s family had previously filed numerous requests for his release on bail or access to better medical treatment. Shah also had chronic hypertension and diabetes, which placed him in a high-risk category during India’s lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“[Monday] at 10:30 p.m., he died in the hospital. When he was speaking, they prevented us from seeing him. They gave us permission when he stopped speaking, one of Shah’s relatives told Al Jazeera.
The family reported that Shah was sent to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi on September 24 following a protracted sickness in custody. He was identified as having advanced kidney carcinoma a week later.
His journalistic daughter Ruwa Shah used Twitter to draw attention to her father’s failing health and to demand better care. Additionally, she appealed for a health-related bail in letters to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Home Minister Amit Shah.
“Acute kidney cancer, which has metastasized and spread to my father’s other body parts, including his bones, has been identified. Please let us see him and take his request for bail into consideration based on health considerations, my entire family asks, Ruwa Shah wrote in a tweet on September 30.
Shah was transferred to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in the nation’s capital on October 5, when he passed away.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India detained Shah and six other well-known Kashmiri pro-freedom leaders in 2017 on suspicion of money laundering.
Two years later, New Delhi abruptly revoked the disputed area’s special status and imprisoned additional Kashmiri politicians and activists.
India and Pakistan both claim the Himalayan region of Kashmir, and both countries have some control over it. Two of the three full-scale wars between the two nuclear-armed states of South Asia have been fought there.
In Kashmir, which is administered by India, a rebellion against New Delhi’s administration got underway in the late 1980s and has since claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The rebels desire either the independence of Kashmir, which is now ruled by India, or its fusion with Pakistan. Shah belonged to a group of nonviolent separatists who demanded that the local populace have the right to self-determination.
Shah is the third detainee from Kashmir to pass away in captivity in the last four years. Their families claim that the fatalities while in detention are a result of Kashmiri captives being imprisoned in several Indian prisons far from their homes, where it is very difficult for their family to visit them.
After five months in captivity, Ghulam Muhammad Bhat, 65, a resident of the Kupwara district of north Kashmir, passed away in a jail in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. When he was taken into custody, he already had a number of illnesses.
Another well-known advocate for freedom, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, 77, passed away from COVID last year at a hospital in Jammu, the capital of Indian-run Kashmir, after spending a year in detention.
Shah was the son-in-law of Syed Ahmed Shah Geelani, a legendary pro-independence politician who passed away last year while undergoing a decade-long home confinement.
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, expressed his sorrow for Shah’s passing in Indian captivity in a message on Twitter.
“Despite being aware that he had cancer, the Modi regime refused to treat him. In India under Modi, homicides in custody are commonplace, he wrote.
Deeply grieved at passing of prominent Kashmiri leader Altaf Shah, son-in-law of Syed Ali Geelani, while in Indian captivity. Modi regime denied him treatment despite knowing he was cancer patient. Custodial killings are norm in Modi’s India. My condolences to the bereaved family
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) October 11, 2022
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