Pakistan summons India’s Charge d’Affaires over deteriorating health of Yasin Malik

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned India’s Charge d’Affaires here to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and handed over a demarche conveying Islamabad’s concern over the deteriorating health condition of Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik.

Malik, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail, began an indefinite hunger strike on July 22 after the Indian government did not respond to his plea that he be allowed to physically appear in a Jammu court hearing the Rubaiya Sayeed abduction case, in which he is an accused.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief was admitted to the capital’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital earlier on Wednesday following a fluctuation in his blood pressure.

The Indian diplomat was told about Pakistan’s deep dismay over the Indian authorities’ latest move of implicating Malik in “two more bogus cases crafted around incidents that happened at least three decades ago,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

A letter addressed to the Indian Prime Minister from Ms Mushaal Hussein Mullick, wife of Yasin Malik, seeking her husband’s immediate release from prison in view of his precarious health condition that aggravated after his decision to go on a hunger-strike earlier this month, was also handed over to the Cd’A, it said.

A Delhi court in May handed out a life sentence to sentenced Malik, one of the foremost separatist leaders of Jammu and Kashmir, saying the crimes were intended to strike at the “heart of the idea of India” and intended to forcefully secede Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India.

Given the urgency of the situation and keeping in view Malik’s sharply deteriorating health indicators, the government of India has been strongly urged to provide him urgent medical care, immediately release him from prison, cancel his “fallacious” conviction and withdraw all other cases against him, the Foreign Office statement said.