Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik goes on hunger strike at India's Tihar Jail

Yasin Malik, one of the most influential freedom fighters leading the struggle for the freedom of Kashmir from the Indian chains, went on a hunger strike inside India’s Tihar Jail on Saturday.

Malik has gone on a hunger strike in protest against inadequate facilities in the jail.

In a related development, Malik’s Pakistani wife Mushaal Hussein Mullick has expressed her concerns about her jailed husband’s failing health. Responding to the reports that her husband has gone on a hunger strike in the jail, Mushaal said that India’s Modi government was victimizing her husband due to political reasons. She said that Malik was being denied the required medical treatment despite issuance of court orders in this regard.

She said that depriving a high-profile political prisoner of medical treatment according to is requirement was a grave violation of human rights. She urged the human rights organizations to intervene to save Malik’s life. She also appealed to the Indian civil society and serious quarters to raise their voice for the ailing Malik.

On May 25, 2022, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in the Indian capital New Delhi sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in a “terror” funding case. Malik, one of Indian-occupied Kashmir’s prominent pro-freedom leaders, is the chief of now banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The group renounced violence in 1994.