NEW DELHI: Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik, who is on a hunger strike in Tihar Jail here for five days, is being given intravenous fluids and his health is being regularly monitored by doctors, officials said on Tuesday.
The 56-year-old head of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), began his indefinite hunger strike on Friday morning after the Centre 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 jailed leader, who was kept in solitary confinement in a high-risk cell in Tihar’s jail number 7, has been shifted to the prison’s Medical Investigation (MI) room where doctors are constantly monitoring his health status and updating officials.
The JKLF chief is serving a life sentence in a terror-funding case. “On Friday morning, Malik refused to eat anything. He is still on a hunger strike and his health is being regularly monitored by doctors. He is being given IV (intravenous) fluids since Sunday,” an official said.
Appearing before a special CBI judge through a video conference, Malik had said he wanted to physically appear in the case related to the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, in 1989. The jailed leader had informed the court that he had written a letter to the government seeking his transfer to a Jammu jail so that he could physically appear in the case and contest the allegations against him.