A month after the escape of Pakistani militant Naveed Jatt from the hospital, Jammu and Kashmir police has shifted former militant commander and one of the longest serving prisoners Altaf Hussain Faktoo alias Dr Muhammad Qasim Faktoo and Muhammad Shafi Shaerati to Jammu jails in a bid to purge anti-national activities in Central Jail Srinagar.
Dr Qasim, who completed 25 years in jail, will be lodged in Udhampur district, while Shaerati will be held in Hiranagar sub-jail. “Both prisoners have been shifted,” said Dr Shesh Paul Vaid, director general of police, Jammu and Kashmir.
With these two, around 40 prisoners — including 22 high risk inmates — have been shifted to jails outside the valley since Jatt escaped from Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital after his associates shot dead two policemen accompanying him for medical checkup and investigations on February 6.
Mohammad Qasim, who heads Muslim Deeni Mahaz (MDM), is serving life sentence for killing human rights activist HN Wanchoo in the early nineties, when he was the commander of Jamiat-ul-Mujhadeen militant outfit. Dr Qasim is the husband of Asiya Andrabi, chief of hard-line pro-Pakistan women's separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat.
A commerce graduate when he was first arrested in 1993, Qasim utilised his jail term to pursue higher education and completed his PhD in Islamic studies, besides earning Maulvi Fazil degree. He is the author of several books, and has been mentoring prisoners who wanted to pursue higher education.
Muhammad Shafi Khan alias Muhammad Shafi Shaerati holds a PhD in Persian and has penned the biography of Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani. A militant ideologue, he has been in jail for quite some time now.
Condemning the shifting of prisoners, Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) of separatists has called for a Kashmir bandh on March 7 against the government’s action.
JRL is an amalgam of Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Geelani, Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik, who spearheaded the 2016 unrest in the Kashmir valley.
“JRL urges the people of Kashmir to observe a complete strike on Wednesday against the shifting of prisoners to outside jails, their prolonged and illegal detention and the ill-treatment meted out to them by jail authorities and the ruling regime,” said the separatist trio.
JRL said Dr Faktoo recently completed 25 years in prison, while Dr Shaerati completed 15 years in jail. “Both the prisoners are suffering from multiple ailments due to prolonged confinement and yet they were shifted to Jammu jails, endangering their lives, which is inimical to all humanitarian and democratic principles,” the separatist trio said.
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