Srinagar: The Kashmir High Court Bar Association on Monday strongly condemns the “ill-treatment” meted out to the Kashmiri and Pakistani prisoners lodged in Tihar Jail, New Delhi, and describes it “flagrant violation of International Law as well as of the Provisions of Jail Manual.”
Referring to the law and the jail manual, which envisages that a person, while in custody, is not stripped of his legal and/or fundamental rights and that all those aspects of life which make a person to live with human dignity are guaranteed to a prisoner as well, while in jail.
“The prisoner can neither be kept in solitary confinement nor held in fetters. He cannot also be handcuffed, tortured, humiliated or beaten while in police/jail custody.”
The government, the lawyers’ body said that it was also bound to provide human conditions in prisons and protection homes and give special treatment to children and women lodged in jails or
protection homes.
The Bar Association demanded that the Kashmiri and Pakistani prisoners lodged in jails, both inside and outside the State, should not be maltreated and the International Red Cross should send its teams,
to Tihar and other Jails to find as to why Kashmiri and Pakistani prisoners are driven out of their cells, barracks during the night hours and are “beaten” by jail authorities and as to why medical and other
facilities are denied to them despite court orders and the requirements under the jail manual.
The lawyers’ body also expressed its grief and sorrow over the road accident at Ramban in which 22 persons lost their lives.
