Jailed Kashmiri separatist's family requests to allow them to meet him

Srinagar: Jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Altaf Ahmad Shah's family and requested the Union government allow them to meet him. They said that despite Shah being diagnosed with cancer, he is not being provided with proper medical treatment. They also appealed for his bail on the grounds of health, The Indian Express (TIE) reported.

Ruwa Shah, Shah's daughter, said on Twitter, tagging the Prime Minister's Office, that her father has been diagnosed with acute renal cancer. It has metastasis and has spread to other body parts, including bones.

Ruwa's tweet comes a week after she wrote an open letter to PM Narendra Modi explaining her father's conditions.

Altaf Ahmad Shah is son-in-law to Hurriyat's former chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Shah has been lodged in Tihar jail since 2018 for an alleged terror funding case charged by the National Investigation Agency.

When he was in jail, his health status declined, and he was shifted to Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital of Delhi.

Further, she detailed in a series of tweets that her father's cancer also spread to vital organs, including the lungs, abdomen and spine. The doctors at the RML hospital refuse to speak with his family, and the police are not letting them see him.

In her September 22 letter to PM Modi, she wrote, "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 conditions. However, he was brought back to Tihar jail instead," TIE quoted.

She wrote that when the family asked about Shah's health at the NIA special court, the jail administration gave an indifferent reply that Shah only had hypertension and diabetes. The reports did not mention his pneumonia, extremely low haemoglobin and kidney malfunction, she said in the letter.

TIE further quotes 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."

Then she requested the PM's intervention so that she and her family could know about his condition. She appealed to the PM to provide needed medical aid to Shah before it was too late.