Detained Kashmir leaders’ family share ordeal

SRINAGAR: With a bag containing insulin vials and a separate pack of needles and lancets Fareeda Begum arrived at the office of a senior government official earlier this week and requested him that these be delivered to her husband Muhammad Sayeed Akhnoon.

“He is suffering from chronic diabetes and needs to inject insulin thrice a day,” she pleaded.  

Akhoon, a former National Conference (NC) MLA, is among several hundred mainstream political leaders and activists detained by the police earlier this month amid furore over abrogation of the special status for Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and splitting the state into two Union Territories.

Ms Fareeda informed the official that at the time of being taken into custody, from his home in Srinagar’s Zakura area,  police officials allowed Akhoon to take essential medicines and a pack of insulin cartridges, pump with him.

“He must have exhausted them by now”, she beseeched.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help. There is nothing (left) in our hands,” the official told her.  

Dejected on hearing this, she asked the official if his senior, deputy commissioner of Srinagar Shahid Chaudhary could help.

“I doubt,” came the reply from the official, leaving Ms Fareeda disheartened.

She said that Akhoon’s brother Muhammad Aslam had tried to meet him in the detention centre, but was turned away by the security officials.

Incidentally, Akhoon is among a few mainstream politicians who chose to stay put when others including senior leaders of his own party fled the Valley following the outbreak of insurgency in 1989-90.  

Merajuddin Bhat was also seen moving from floor to floor and room to room in the same administrative complex, desperately looking for someone who could play “messiah” for him.