Kashmiri female political prisoners being denied medicine

On 15th April, families of Kashmiri female political prisoners currently lodged in Tihar jail bemoaned the denial of medicine and healthcare to their incarcerated loved ones.

Three Kashmiri pro-freedom activists, Asiya Andrabi, Nahida Nasreen, and Fehmeeda Sofi have been incarcerated in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2018. The trio have been jailed for their advocacy for Kashmir’s right to self-determination. 

Their families stated that the trio have been cut off from the essential medicines that they were previously allowed. The 62-year-old Andrabi suffers from life-threatening diseases such as angioedema, urticaria, arthritis, asthma, and bronchospasm. 

Similarly, the 33-year-old Sofi Fehmeeda has serious back ailments and is currently bedridden and cannot move without a wheelchair. She requires an urgent back surgery, which she has been denied. Doctors maintain that the delay in surgery may render her completely immobile.

Nahida also suffers from multiple ailments. 

The families fear that the denial of medicine is being used to systematically murder their family members in prison, and then to present their deaths as “natural”.

In the past, Kashmiri political prisoners like Ashraf Sehrai were similarly murdered in custody through prolonged denial of basic and critical healthcare. Sehrai’s family would send him medicine every month from home, but the prison authorities would withhold them. He was only admitted to hospital when his condition was irredeemable and he died the same day.