The family of separatist Kashmiri leader Altaf Ahmad Shah, who has been imprisoned in Delhi’s Tihar jail since 2017 and was recently diagnosed with renal cancer, has appealed for his release so that he can "die as a free man.”
Speaking to The Quint, the 66-year-old's daughter Ruwa Shah said that she doesn’t want to see him pass away as a prisoner. “We know these are his final days. He is on a ventilator and is critical. But the worst part is that he is still not a free man. This was always his biggest concern since being jailed, that he will die a prisoner. We appeal to the courts to free a dying man and grant him bail on humanitarian grounds,” Ruwa said.
After several days of public appeals to shift Shah to AIIMS for his cancer treatment, the Delhi High Court on Monday, 3 October passed an order stating that Shah must be admitted to the hospital.
The high court order stated: “Without going into the merits of the case as the right to have adequate and suitable treatment is the part of fundamental right as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution and after considering the totality of the circumstances and in the interest of justice it is ordered that the petitioner be shifted to AIIMS, Delhi for appropriate treatment under the judicial custody and direct supervision of the concerned Jail Superintendent and after following all necessary security measures."
However, his daughter said that it wasn’t until the evening of Wednesday, 5 October that he was moved to AIIMS. “In such a situation, every minute is crucial. His health is deteriorating very rapidly, the delay might cost him heavily. The doctors at AIIMS have told us that now they can’t perform any surgery on him because if they take him off ventilator, he won’t survive," Ruwa said.
Shah's Illness
Ruwa, a journalist, had first tweeted about her father’s condition on 21 September, saying that he is “critically ill with Pneumonia, uncontrollable diabetes & chronic kidney disease” and needs a “proper hospital” instead of the jail ICU.
She had also appealed to PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah seeking urgent attention be given to the matter. A few days later, Shah was moved to the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital where he was diagnosed with Renal cancer on 30 September, Ruwa said. She subsequently appealed that Shah be moved to AIIMS, as the RML hospital doesn’t have facilities to treat his cancer.
Shah’s medical report, accessed by The Quint, says “currently the patient is critically ill with multi-organ dysfunction requiring life support (ventilator and inotropic support).”
It further states: “The patient requires oncology opinion and PET scan which are not available in our hospital, therefore patient needs to be transferred to a centre above mentioned facility (sic)."
It was after two days of the High court order asking him to be shifted that he was finally admitted to AIIMS.
Shah, the son-in-law of the late separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was one of the seven people arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on terror funding charges in 2017.
Ruwa said he first began showing signs of serious illness in 2020, when she wrote an article in The Caravan magazine talking about how he isn’t being given adequate treatment in Tihar jail.
Ruwa shared her father’s handwritten notes about his declining health, written while in the jail. “He is no longer able to talk...he is on ventilator but these notes show the progression of his illness,” she said.
Excerpt from Altaf Shah's handwritten note:
June : Pain around Kidney. Also back pain starts in the month of June. OPD Doctors taking casually giving painkillers.
August: Back pain & fever aggravated more.
22 August: Sent to OPD at DDU, They advised antibiotic ciprofloxacin with paracetamol and advised USG.
August 29: Midnight sent to DDU. Ultrasound Kidney was done and found HYDRONEPHROSIS
Former Jammu and Kashmir CM and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti had also tweeted demanding Shah's release. "Continued incarceration of Altaf Shah is inhumane as he is critically ill," Mufti had written.
Multiple political prisoners in different parts of the country have been citing severe health complications. Most recently, Atikur Rahman, one of the men arrested in the Hathras UAPA case in 2020, was rushed to the hospital where the left side of his body was found paralysed.
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