Like Father Stan Swamy, under-trial prisoner suffers from serious health issues in Kerala jail

Thiruvananthapuram: Like Bhima Koregaon accused, Father Stan Swamy who has fallen sick in Maharashtra's Taloja Jail, a 67-year-old Ibrahim, who was arrested in 2015 for alleged Maoist activities and charged with UAPA, is reportedly facing extreme health conditions as an under-trial prisoner in Kerala's Viyyur Central Jail.

A native of the Wayanad district in Kerala, Ibrahim suffers from heart ailments and a severe case of diabetes, which led to the loss of teeth and ultimately difficulty in having food.

Ibrahim was arrested on May 13th 2015, from the grocery shop he worked at Payyoli, Kozhikode and in 2016, NIA charged UAPA on him for his alleged links with the banned organisation CPI (Maoist).

For the last six years, he wasn't given parole or bail, while many of the accused arrested with him were released. He was named in two cases regarding the arson of a policeman's bike, out of which he was acquitted from one. But the case charged by NIA stays alive.

In light of a Supreme Court order, the Kerala government had released more than a thousand prisoners on parole as Covid-19 cases were even reported inside prisons. Still, UAPA prisoners didn't receive this relief. Ibrahim, who is already under mortal ailments, hadn't given the consideration of his age as the pandemic could easily infect him.

Though he is on 22 different tablets a day, his diabetes is out of control, leading to teeth damage. Because of that, his teeth were removed. Thus, meals became difficult for him, and he lost 7 kilograms of weight in 10 days. According to his relatives, his health is deteriorating by the day.

Ibrahim's wife, Jameela, wrote the state police chief and the chief minister begging for his release, citing his health conditions and covid cases being reported inside jails. Social activists and writers including K Satchidanandan, J Devika, Sunny M Kapicad, Kalpatta Narayanan, Meena Kandasamy, among 16 people, also wrote CM demanding bail for Ibrahim.

Ibrahim was a well-known leader who held protests against the eviction of workers of the Harrison Malayalam Plantation during the late '90s.