Qaisar Mansoor
First martyrdom anniversary of Senior Kashmiri Hurriyat leader, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai is being observed on 5 May 2022. He was head of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and a member of Jama’at-e-Islam. Sehrai was suffering from multiple ailments and was not provided with any treatment during his incarceration.
He was imprisoned in Indian jail under squalid conditions despite serious deterioration of his health and the prevailing COVID-19 crisis. He had spent more than 16 years in various Indian jails in a political career that spanned nearly six decades.
Sehrai made a significant contribution to the Kashmiris’ struggle for their right to self-determination and suffered lifelong persecution at the hands of India. The custodial killing or deliberate murder of Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai authenticates the fears of Hurriyat leaders about their comrades who have been languishing in jails either in India or in the occupied territory and it is time that United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross should urge India to drop all fabricated charges against political leaders of IIOJK and provide them complete legal protections, including the right to a free and fair trial.
A New York-based Kashmiri political anthropologist, Mohamad Junaid said, “there is no difference between killing and actively creating the conditions of someone’s death.” In a tweet, he said, “When a state can’t take care of its own people, how could it ever look after the health of political dissidents it has declared as enemies and imprisoned?” India has arrested thousands of Kashmiris under the Public Safety Act since 1989, when an armed struggle erupted in occupied Kashmir seeking the region’s independence or merger with Pakistan.
Rights groups say India has used the law to stifle dissent and circumvent the justice system, undermining The martyred leader Sehrai’s two sons namely, Mujahid Ashraf Sehrai and Rashid Ashraf Sehrai, were arrested by police from Bulbulbagh in Srinagar on May 15, 2021 Saturday evening.
Political experts and analysts termed the continued arrest of Mujahid Ashraf Sehrai and Rashid Ashraf Sehrai, and other relatives of Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai as political victimization.
Accountability, transparency and respect for human rights. India’s attempt to portray Kashmiri leaders as “terrorists” and then prosecute them through “concocted cases” is a violation of international human rights and international law, including United Nations Charter and resolutions passed by the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly.
