While the Supreme Court of In­dia has be­lat­edly is­sued an or­der for the re­lease of pris­on­ers on pa­role in view of the COVID19 pan­demic as­sum­ing dan­ger­ous pro­por­tions, the road to free­dom for po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers is far away. Last week saw the pass­ing away of Tehreek-e-Hur­riyat chief, suave, gen­tle­man vi­sion­ary and ide­o­logue of Kash­mir’s free­dom Mo­ham­mad Ashraf Sehrai at a hos­pi­tal in Jammu, where he was brought from prison. The Sikh na­tion­al­ist body Dal Khalsa has mourned his death and The Dal Khalsa mourned the demise of the Kash­mir leader, in­car­cer­ated un­der the Pub­lic Safety Act since last July and called him a friend of the Sikhs and a sup­porter of the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of the peo­ple of Pun­jab.

LEAD­ERS OF DAL KHALSA -a pro-free­dom Sikh group from Pun­jab ex­pressed their heart­felt con­do­lences on Mo­ham­mad Ashraf Sehrai’s death, rem­i­nisc­ing him as a man of prin­ci­ples and com­mit­ment.

Pray­ing for strength to his fam­ily, Hur­riyat col­leagues and the peo­ple of Kash­mir, Dal Khalsa mourned the loss of the “true rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the as­pi­ra­tions of the peo­ple of Kash­mir.”

The 77-year-old pro-Kash­miri free­dom leader, known to fol­low the foot­steps of Hur­riyat pa­tri­arch Syed Ali Shah Gee­lani, was im­pris­oned un­der the Pub­lic Safety Act (PSA) by the J-K ad­min­is­tra­tion in July last year and was presently un­der de­ten­tion in Jammu prison.  Orig­i­nally a Ja­maat-e-Is­lami ide­o­logue from the fron­tier dis­trict of Kup­wara, Sehrai co-founded the Tehreek-e-Hur­riyat along with  Kash­miri na­tion­al­ist leader Syed Ali Shah Gee­lani.

Re­lease all po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Kash­mir.

Thereek-e-Hur­riyat

“Mo­ham­mad Sehrai Sahib has left this world with the dream of an in­de­pen­dent and sov­er­eign Kash­mir still un­ful­filled and a big lead­er­ship vac­uum as the old and ail­ing Gee­lani is bedrid­den and un­der house ar­rest and the com­par­a­tively younger lead­ers im­pris­oned.”

As per a gov­ern­ment com­mu­nique, he was ad­mit­ted to GMC Jammu af­ter his health de­te­ri­o­rated in the Jammu prison and had been suf­fer­ing from mul­ti­ple ail­ments. As per the re­port COVID19 was dis­cov­ered posthu­mously.

Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh, while speak­ing to World Sikh News said, “Sehrai Sahib was a gen­uine friend of Sikhs of Pun­jab. Like the peo­ple of Kash­mir, we too have lost a sym­pa­thizer and sup­porter. He was a tow­er­ing po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­ity, who would be re­mem­bered for sac­ri­fic­ing his life for the just cause of Kash­mir.”

“Sehrai Sahib was a gen­uine friend of Sikhs of Pun­jab. Like the peo­ple of Kash­mir, we too have lost a sym­pa­thizer and sup­porter. “

Kan­war Pal Singh, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Cut­ting across party and ide­ol­ogy lines, Kash­miri lead­ers of all hues and shades have mourned Sehrai’s death. The Kash­mir me­dia, un­der threat of the state be­cause of an unan­nounced em­bargo on news of pro-free­dom out­fits, barely pub­lished the news of his death.

Afraid even in his death, un­der strict po­lice and mil­i­tary es­cort, with a hand­ful of rel­a­tives, the body of chair­man of Theerek-e-Hur­riyat Mo­ham­mad Ashraf Sehrai was laid to rest at the fam­ily bur­ial ground in his pa­ter­nal vil­lage with only close fam­ily of­fer­ing prayers and pay­ing last re­spects. No one else was al­lowed any­where near the home of the man whose in­sur­gent son Ju­naid Ashraf Khan, died fight­ing the se­cu­rity forces in 2018.

“My fa­ther was not given proper treat­ment in prison and in his phone call to us, he too was com­plain­ing about this.”

Mu­jahid Sehrai, son of Hur­riyat leader Mo­hammed Ashraf Sehrai

The de­ceased lead­er’s son Mu­jahid Sehrai has pointed out that even though they had moved court for his re­lease on health grounds but the court was still to hear their prayer. He said, “My fa­ther was not given proper treat­ment in prison and in his phone call to us, he too was com­plain­ing about this.”

Ex­tolling the qual­i­ties and con­tri­bu­tion of Ashraf Sehrai, Hur­riyat, in a press re­lease said, “He was ded­i­cated to his party and its ide­ol­ogy and worked tire­lessly and self­lessly for the peo­ple’s move­ment, suf­fer­ing lock­ups and jails in the course of his life. Sehrai Saab’s con­tri­bu­tion to the peo­ple’s move­ment will al­ways be re­mem­bered and ho­n­oured….”

The gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the shadow ad­min­is­tra­tion in Jammu and Kash­mir would do well to heed the ad­vice of TeH -Tehreek-e-Hur­riyat, that, “De­spite re­peated ap­peals to re­lease po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers lodged in var­i­ous jails on hu­man­i­tar­ian grounds…au­thor­i­ties are play­ing with their lives. We once again ask Gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to re­lease all po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers”.