Yasin Malik goes on hunger strike in Tihar Jail

New Delhi: Kashmiri Separatist leader Yasin Malik, who is currently lodged at cell No. 7 of the Tihar Jail, has gone on a hunger strike, officials said on Saturday.

"Malik has been on hunger strike since Friday morning," a senior jail official confirmed to IANS.

Malik was convicted in connection with a 2017 terror funding case and sentenced to life imprisonment on May 25 by an NIA special court.

When asked the reason behind his hunger strike, the official refrained from divulging any details further. However, prison sources said that Malik is protesting against the agencies that are investigating his cases.

"Malik is alleging that his case is not being investigated properly, hence gone on an indefinite hunger strike," the sources said.

Notably, Malik is not just separated from the outside world, he is even kept alone inside the prison, away from nearly 13,000 inmates there.

Jail No. 7, where Malik is lodged, has been always in the limelight as it has housed several high-profile prisoners, including former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, former Union Minister A. Raja, Sahara head Subrata Roy, Christian Michel, among several others.

The Court in its order had awarded two life sentences and five punishments of 10 years of 'Rigorous Imprisonment' each to the convict.

Rigorous imprisonment means confinement of the offender in a manner that increases the hardship of the jail term based upon the nature of the offence by subjecting the offender to special arrangements in the jail.

Despite Court orders, Malik was not given any work inside the prison.

"He won't be assigned work at all due to security reasons," a top prison official told IANS, adding the work is assigned subject to security concerns and the decision is taken as per jail rules.

Pertinently, a few months back, another high-profile prisoner, Sukesh Chandrashekhar, protested against the prison authorities to meet his wife more than two times a month and subsequently twice went on hunger strike for 10 days and then again for nine days in the month of May.

The top prison official informed that Sukesh was demanding to arrange a meeting with his wife Leena Maria Paul who is currently lodged in cell no. 6 of Tihar Jail.

For this misconduct, a jail punishment was also made against Sukesh.