Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chairman Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, who was lodged in Udhampur jail under Public Safety Act (PSA), died in Government Medical College hospital in Jammu on Wednesday.
Sehrai,a close aide of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was shifted from Udhampur late Tuesday evening after he complained of breathlessness. 77-year-old Sehrai was suffering from multiple ailments.
His family had recently requested the J&K administration to release him “because his health was falling in the jail”.
He breathed his last Wednesday morning. At the time of admission his Rapid Antigen test report was negative. He had tested positive for Covid-19 on an RTPCR test later.
The police authorities in Jammu had informed his family in Srinagar about his condition after he was rushed to the hospital in a critical condition. His dead body was handed over to his elder son late Wednesday evening after completing the necessary formalities.
Sehrai was lodged in a district jail since July 2020 after the killing of his son Junaid Sehrai, a Hizbul Mujahideen commander.
Sehrai, originally a Jamaat-e-Islami leader, had floated Tehreek-e-Hurriyat in 2003 with Syed Ali Geelani.
Following his death some Kashmir based politicians once again urged the Centre government to release political prisoners and other detainees lodged across different jails.
Former Chief Minister and PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, "Deeply saddened to know about Ashraf Sehrai sahab’s sudden demise. Like him countless political prisoners & other detainees from J&K continue to be jailed purely for their ideologies & thought process. In today’s India one pays a price with his life for dissent. The least GOI can do in such dangerous circumstances is to immediately release these detainees on parole so that they return home to their families".
Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference Sajad Lone also posted a series of tweets questioning the logic behind keeping an infirm dying person behind bars . In his tweets Lone said, "Ashraf Sehrai Sahib passes away. A long political career comes to an end. Ashraf Sahib struggled all his life. A Jamaat ideologue".
“...And why did he have to die in incarceration and not at his home amongst his kin and loved ones. Have we become so weak that an old infirm dying person is a threat to the state. I am not being critical. But please introspect. Seharai Sahib was a political leader not a terrorist",Lone tweeted.