In occupied Kashmir, the High Court Bar Association has strongly condemned the ill treatment meted out to the Kashmiri detainees and under-trial prisoners lodged in different jails particularly at District Jail Kathua in the Jammu region.
The detainees confined to cells for days together and are forced to cut grass and do other menial jobs inside the jail and are also denied medical treatment, the Bar Association said in a statement issued in Srinagar.
“The latest example is the case of Mohammad Shaban Dar of Marhama, who is suffering of jaundice and has not been provided the treatment,” the Bar said terming the same as barbaric, cruel and inhuman. It demanded that Principal District Judge, Kathua should immediately visit District Jail Kathua to ensure the safety and security of Kashmiri prisoners lodged in the said jail.
The Bar Association added that the detainees and under-trials were also human beings and they were also entitled to the right to life and to all those aspects of life, “which make a person to live in dignity are also available to them and it is only that a prisoner, who has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment who can be asked to work in the jail.”
The prisoners are either without trial or their cases are pending in the courts of law. “They cannot be therefore asked to work in the jail. They have the right to food, medical care, clothing, decent environment and protection to their cultural heritage and to pollution free water and air and access to justice, which has however been denied to the Kashmiri prisoners at District Jail Kathua and other jails.”
The Bar Association appealed to the International Committee of Red Cross, UN Human Rights Council and all other human rights organizations of the world to take cognizance of these human rights violations and raise their voice for mitigation of the sufferings of these Kashmiri prisoners.
Meanwhile, in the Bar Executive Committee during a meeting in Srinagar reiterated that holding of Parliamentary elections in J&K was an off repeated futile exercise and as the elections are no substitute to the right of self-determination, guaranteed to the people of Kashmir by 28 United Nations Security Council Resolutions passed since 1948…,” the bar demanded.
