Srinagar, June 25 (IANS) The ruling National Conference (NC) MP, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, on Wednesday wrote a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah about the reported deteriorating health of jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah.

Shah was arrested in 2017 in a terror funding case and for inciting violence against the state. He is presently lodged in Tihar Jail, Delhi.

Mehdi said in his letter to the Union Home Minister, “Shabir Shah is now 70 years old. By every humane and legal standard, he is entitled to medical treatment with fairness and dignity. His doctors have recommended three surgeries for serious medical conditions, which include life-threatening prostate cancer.

“Our country has legal and moral obligations, under both its Constitution and international treaties, to ensure that prisoners are treated with humanity,” he wrote in the letter.

The MP finally made a fervent appeal to the Union Home Minister to provide medical care to Shabir Shah at a facility equipped with cancer treatment. He also urged the home minister to ensure that the family of the incarcerated separatist is involved in every medical decision taken about the health of Shabir Shah.

“The measure of a nation is how it treats its weakest. Let us not fail in that test,” Ruhullah added.

It must be recalled that separatist Kashmiri leaders, including Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah, Nayeem Khan and others, are lodged in Tihar Jail after they were arrested for waging war against the country.

After the abrogation of Article 370 and with the arrest of the local separatist leaders, incidents of stone pelting, public protests and attendance at funerals of terrorists stopped in Kashmir.

A modicum of normalcy has returned to Jammu and Kashmir after August 5, 2019, when Parliament abrogated Article 370 and brought it under direct Central rule by dividing the erstwhile state into two UTs of Ladakh and J&K.

–IANS

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