The J&K High Court Bar Association Srinagar today urged the authorities to release all detenues and political prisoners lodged in and outside J&K including its president, advocate Mian Qayoom, who is lodged in Central Jail Tihar, New Delhi.
The executive members of the Bar after holding a meetingthrough ‘teleconference’ urged the authorities to release all the detenues andpolitical prisoners lodged in and outside J&K in light of the directionsissued by the Supreme Court recently.
The SC in view of spread of coronavirus across the countryrecently asked the authorities concerned to constitute high-powered committeewhich would consider release of prisoners.
“Since the jails throughout India are mostly overcrowded,therefore, the Supreme Court noticed the potential threat to the lives ofinmates, particularly those suffering from diabetes, hypertension and otherlife-threatening diseases, who have been found more susceptible to becomevictims of COVID-19,” the bar in a statement said.
The members said the Bar President, Mian Abdul Qayoom, whois in his advanced age surviving on a single kidney, suffering from multiplechronic ailments which include diabetes, hypertension, severe nerve damage, 60percent blockage in one of the arteries of heart, resulting in his frail immunesystem, “is more prone to become victim of deadly virus with minimal chances ofhis survival.”
The members also stated that “at a time when the whole worldhas united to counter the deadly virus by maintaining social distance, it wouldbe very prudent and appropriate for the authorities to release thedetenues/undertrial political prisoners from jails, either permanently or onparole, in order to save them from contracting the deadly virus”.
Meanwhile, the bar members said the judgments reserved onsome Habeas Corpus Petitions have not been announced till date, and requested theChief Justice of J&K “to make necessary arrangements for announcement ofthose judgments.”