Kashmiri journalist Ruwa Shah has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating health of her father and All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader, Altaf Ahmad Shah, illegally detained at New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail.
Ruwa Shah has written a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, seeking intervention into the medical negligence faced by her father in the jail. She tweeted that her father has been seriously ill since a week now and the family has no information about his whereabouts for the last two days.
“My father Mr. Altaf Ahmad Shah who is currently incarcerated at Tihar Jail in New Delhi was unwell for over two weeks during which he repeatedly requested the jail authorities to take him to a hospital. When he was finally taken to Deendayal hospital Janakpuri, the doctors referred him to Ram Manohar Lohia hospital for further treatment owing to his seemingly critical condition. However, he was brought back to Tihar Jail instead,” Ruwa Shah wrote in the letter to Narendra Modi.
Altaf Ahmad Shah was amongst seven Hurriyat leaders arrested in 2017 by India’s National Investigative Agency in a false case registered against them.
“When we inquired about his health at the NIA special court and sought his medical reports, we were stunned to know that the jail authorities had submitted prevaricated reports merely mentioning that he had diabetes and hypertension. These reports had no mention of his pneumonia, extremely low haemoglobin and kidney malfunction, thus clearly underplaying his critical condition,” Ruwa Shah maintained in the letter.
“Over the last two days, we have had no whereabouts of him. A sudden sense of panic and anxiety has taken over me and my family because of being absolutely clueless about my father. I request you earnestly to intervene, allow us to know of his condition immediately, and make the requisite medical help reach him before it is too late,” she further wrote.—KMS
