Kashmiri daughter's cry for help breaks political barriers in Valley

A heartfelt cry from a daughter has pierced through Kashmir’s political polarization — uniting mainstream and separatist voices in an appeal to the Centre for urgent medical attention to jailed separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah.

Shah’s younger daughter, Sehar Shabir, took to social media platform X to make a deeply personal and emotionally charged appeal, stating her father, incarcerated in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2017, is battling life-threatening illnesses — including a suspected case of prostate cancer — without access to adequate medical care, his family, or even his own medical records.

“This is not political. This is not anti-national. This is about my father’s life. His dignity. His right to survive,” she wrote. “If justice means anything, let it speak now. Not when it is too late.”

Sehar’s message, raw in emotion and piercing in its clarity, ignited an unexpected wave of support across Kashmir’s fractured political landscape — from the ruling National Conference and the rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference and even Hurriyat circles.

In a rare show of collective conscience, Srinagar MP and senior NC leader Aga Ruhullah Mehdi penned a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah urging the government to intervene.

“Shabir Shah is 70, gravely ill, and remains incarcerated without basic care,” Ruhullah wrote. “The Nelson Mandela Rules and our own legal precedents demand dignity and medical access for all prisoners. Why must compassion be so selectively applied?”

He cited examples where courts had granted house arrest or medical relief to other undertrials like Gautam Navlakha and Zahoor Watali, calling the denial of similar treatment to Shah a violation of both legal and moral obligations.

Former chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti also raised her voice, urging the Centre to respond with compassion.

“This may be the family’s last chance to ease his suffering. Please let humanity prevail,” Mufti posted on X.

Peoples Conference chief Sajad Lone echoed the sentiment, reminding authorities that access to treatment and family support are basic rights.

“Shah sahib is not well. He must be allowed to fight his illness with dignity, and with his loved ones by his side,” Lone said.

Shabir Shah, a prominent separatist voice, has spent 38 years in various prisons — often without conviction. His daughter’s appeal has stirred not just sympathy, but a deeper moral reckoning across the political spectrum — raising hard questions about the treatment of undertrials, the denial of basic human rights, and the selective silence around such issues.

Sehar’s words — “I’ve watched him suffer in silence behind soundproof walls and iron grills” — have found unexpected resonance, reminding the country that at the heart of every political prisoner is a family pleading for humanity.

“You were told. You knew. And you chose to look away,” she wrote. The question now is — will India continue to?