Srinagar, June 17 : In occupied Kashmir, the High Court Bar Association (HCBA) has strongly condemned the inhuman treatment meted out to the illegally detained Hurriyet leaders and activists at Kot Bhalwal and Amphala jails in Jammu.
The HCBA spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar said that in the past also the jail authorities teased and tortured the detainees and under-trial prisoners and Bar Association had brought the matter to the notice of the High Court and had requested it to initiate appropriate proceedings against the jail authorities. He said that even a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the High Court on which several orders were passed directing the teams constituted in 1994 to visit all the jails of the territory, at least once in two months, and submit their reports in the High Court. He said that despite the court directions, no member of the committees had visited the jails making the jail authorities to continue ill-treatment to the detenues and under-trial prisoners.
The Bar Association spokesman said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was apprised of the condition of the detainees in the jails, but it had failed in its duty to highlight the sufferings and miseries of the jail inmates in occupied Kashmir. “Unless and until the international human rights organizations take notice of the sufferings and miseries of the detainees lodged in the jails in Jammu and Kashmir, the prisoners will continue to suffer,” he added.
The spokesman pointed out that the cloths and food items brought by relatives to the prisoners were also not allowed inside the jail premises by the authorities. “The detainees are made to clean toilets and drains and are forced to cut the grass which is against the jail manual,” he said.
