Yasin Malik, the commander of the Kashmiri Separatists and a prisoner at Tihar Jail’s cell No. 7, has reportedly started a hunger strike, according to officials.
“Malik has been on hunger strike since Friday morning,” a senior jail official confirmed.
On May 25, a special NIA court found Malik guilty in connection with a 2017 case involving the funding of terrorism and gave him a life sentence.
When questioned about the cause of his hunger strike, the official withheld additional information. Prison officials claim that Malik is resisting the groups investigating into his cases.
“Malik is alleging that his case is not being investigated properly, hence gone on an indefinite hunger strike,” the sources said.
Notably, Malik is not only kept apart from the outside world; he is also kept segregated from the prison’s nearly 13,000 other inmates.
Malik is being held in Jail No. 7, which has previously housed a number of well-known inmates, including Christian Michel, Subrata Roy, the head of Sahara, and former Union Ministers A. Raja, P. Chidambaram, and the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
In its ruling, the court sentenced the convict to two life sentences and five terms of “Rigorous Imprisonment” totaling ten years each.
Rigorous imprisonment is defined as the confinement of the offender in a way that, given the nature of the offence, makes the jail term more difficult by putting the offender through special jail conditions.
Malik was not assigned any work while imprisoned in violation of court orders.
“He won’t be assigned work at all due to security reasons,” a top prison official told.
Contextually, Sukesh Chandrashekhar, another well-known prisoner, demanded to see his wife more than twice a month a few months ago. As a result, he criticised the prison administration and twice went on hunger strikes, the first for 10 days and the second for nine days in the month of May.
Sukesh had requested a meeting with his wife Leena Maria Paul, who was being held at Tihar Jail’s cell number 6, according to the top jail officer.
Sukesh received a jail sentence for his misbehavior as well.
