Incarcerated Kashmiri separatist leader Ashraf Sehrai breathed his last breath at Jammu hospital on May 5. He had covid syptoms and was later found covid positive posthumously. Sehrai was under “preventive detention” at the Udhampur jail since July 2020 and was taken to a hospital in Jammu when his condition worsened on May 4. Sehrai’s elder son, Mujahid Sehrai, said his father was denied proper medical care while in jail. He said he spoke to him on a phone call 10 days ago and he was facing breathing problem. He was handed over chairmanship of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, one of the constituent parties of the Hurriyat Conference, the biggest seperatist group in Jammu and Kashmir by octagenarian leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in 2018. A devout ally of Syed Ali Geelani, Sehrai was also seen as his political heir. His son Junaid Sehrai who joined militant ranks in 2018 was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Down Town, Srinagar in July last year. Pakistan PM reacted to his death in a tweet and said “India’s oppression of Kashmiris is a blot on the [international] community’s collective conscience, We will continue to support Kashmiris’ just struggle for the right to self-determination in acc with UNSC Resolutions.” Apart from Khan, local mainstream leaders like , Peoples Democratic President and former Chief Minister of J&K Mehbooba Mufti expressed her sadness and anguish over the demise of Sehrai. ”Deeply saddened to know about Ashraf Sehrai sahab’s sudden demise. Like him countless political prisoners & other detainees from J&K continue to be jailed purely for their ideologies & thought process. In today’s India one pays a price with his life for dissent” tweeted Mehbooba Mufti adding ”The least GOI can do in such dangerous circumstances is to immediately release these detainees on parole so that they return home to their families’. In other series of tweets Sajad Lone, People’s Conference president and son of seperatist leader late Abdul Gani Lone said , ”Ashraf Sehrai Sahib passes away. A long political career comes to an end. Ashraf Sahib struggled all his life. A Jamaat ideologue. When I was 19 I bumped into him and He told me Tel ur father —kitney haseen hain terey lab ki galiyan dekey bemaza na hua. May Allah grant him Jannat”.
”This is the irony of Kashmiri politics. Top quality politicians consumed by the conflict. The ideological versatility of Kashmir politics is a curse. A transparently honest politician spent decades in jail”.
”And why did he have to die in incarceration and not at his home amongst his kin and loved ones. Have we become so weak that an old infirm dying person is a threat to the state. I am not being critical. But please introspect. Seharai Sahib was a political leader not a terrorist”. It is pertinent to mention here that Sehrai was a close friend with Sajad Lone’s father Abdul Gani Lone. Abdul Gani Lone was the founder of Hurriyat ‘M’ which is a constituent of all parties Hurriyat Conference. All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was formed on July 31, 1993, as a political foundation of the separatist movement. It was an augmentation of the aggregate of parties that had met up to contest assembly elections against a National Conference-Congress alliance in 1987. 1987 elections are infamous for the alleged rigged elections in the history of J&K that lead to the birth of militancy. The conglomerate of dissimilar ideology was stood firm together by their basic belief that Jammu and Kashmir was “under the occupation of India”, and the alliance demanded that the resolution of Kashmir issue may be sought according to the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
By Suhail Maqbool Lone
