Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik went on a hunger strike in Tihar jail on Friday, alleging that his case is not being investigated properly.
Malik, sentenced by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Delhi this year, is serving two life sentences and varying jail terms, all running concurrently, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code.
Senior jail officials told The Indian Express that Malik refused to eat on Friday and has declared an indefinite hunger strike. “The jail officials met with him and asked him about his demand. He told them that his case is not being investigated properly and the jail officials tried to convince him to end his strike, but he refused,” a senior official said.
Malik, the head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was arrested by the NIA in 2019 in connection with an overarching terror-funding case that it had opened in 2017. In its FIR, the NIA said Kashmiri separatists were receiving funds from Pakistan, including Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Syed Salahuddin of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, to foment trouble in the Valley through stone-pelting, burning down of schools, and organising strikes and protests. The NIA arrested over a dozen separatists in the case, including Malik, Asiya Andrabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, and Shabir Shah of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party.
A few months ago, alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, too, went on a hunger strike twice, demanding that he be allowed to see his wife Leena Maria Paul, who is also lodged at Tihar jail, more often. Chandrashekhar was on intravenous fluid or glucose, but later he ended his hunger strike.–(The Indian Express)
