Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 3: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Monday appeared before the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, urging it to take a humanitarian view and transfer all undertrial prisoners from the Union Territory who are currently lodged in jails outside J-K.
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The former Chief Minister questioned why such detainees, apprehended before and after 2019 “on the basis of suspicion”, continue to languish in prisons when offenders like Asaram and Gurmeet Ram Rahim have been released on bail or parole despite their involvement in heinous crimes.
In her Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Mehbooba Mufti urged the court to order that these prisoners be brought back to J-K unless authorities provide specific written reasons justifying their continued detention outside the Union Territory.
Speaking to reporters after appearing in the court of the Chief Justice of the High Court in Jammu, the PDP chief asserted that her plea was filed out of “compulsion and humanity for hundreds of poor families who have suffered for years without justice”.
She strongly pleaded before the court in favour of the undertrials and said, “See, when every door to justice closes, for me this court is the last door”.
She said most of these prisoners belonged to poor families who cannot afford to travel to meet their kin or fight their legal battles. “They have children, wives and elderly parents at home. They do not have enough money to go and meet them, so how will they fight their cases? How will they go to court if they cannot even visit them?” she said.
Mehbooba Mufti said her petition was a plea to restore a sense of justice and dignity for those who are not convicted yet continue to suffer prolonged incarceration.
After the hearing, the court posted the matter for the next date. “We were given another date,” Mehbooba Mufti said.
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