Yasin Malik admitted to hospital after 4-day hunger strike
Kashmiri Separatist leader Yasin Malik has been admitted to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital after his health deteriorated following the hunger strike. Doctors noted certain changes in Malik's blood pressure, the Tihar jail administration told The Indian Express. Malik, who had been on a four-day hunger strike, alleged that his case was not being examined adequately.
Malik (56), is the head of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). He went on an indefinite hunger strike on Friday morning when the Centre did not respond to his request that he be permitted to physically appear in a Jammu court hearing the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case, in which he is a defendant.
Malik was recently sentenced to life imprisonment in a terror funding case. He has been kept in solitary confinement in a high-risk cell in Tihar jail after the judgment was pronounced. However, he was shifted to the prison's Medical Investigation (MI) room after his health deteriorated following the hunger strike. The prison doctors put him on intravenous fluids before referring him to the hospital.
Malik was convicted by a special NIA court in a terror funding case on May 19 this year and sentenced to life in prison on May 25. The court had also imposed on him a fine of Rs. 10 lakh. On May 10, Malik pleaded guilty to all the charges including those under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)
The court had previously said that Malik had established a complex network of organisations and mechanisms around the world to generate money for engaging in terrorist attacks and other illegal acts in Jammu and Kashmir under the guise of the "liberation fight."
On December 8, 1989, Rubaiya Sayeed was abducted by JKLF members on way to his home just six days after her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had been sworn in as the Union Home Minister in the VP Singh government. The JKLF men abducted Rubaiya, then 23, to seek the release of five of their colleagues from prison.
