Detained separatist leader Sehrai dies

Jammu, May 5

Prominent separatist leader Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, who was arrested under the Public Safety Act on July 13 last year, died at a hospital here on Wednesday, officials said.

Sehrai (77), a close confidant of hardline Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was incarcerated at the district jail in Udhampur. He was shifted to Jammu’s Government Medical College (GMC) hospital after his health deteriorated on Tuesday.

Son had joined militancy

• Sehrai replaced Geelani as Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chief in 2018
• He was incarcerated at the district jail in Udhampur
• His son Junaid, who joined militancy, was killed in May 2020

Sehrai, who replaced Geelani as chairperson of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat in 2018, had tested negative for Covid-19 in a rapid antigen test. His RTPCR report is still awaited.

He had Covid-19 symptoms and his oxygen levels had fallen, officials said. They said Sehrai had been suffering from various ailments. He complained of breathlessness on Tuesday and was taken to the district hospital in Udhampur.

When his situation did not improve, he was moved to the GMC, about 55 km away, where he breathed his last around noon on Wednesday following acute respiratory distress, the officials said.

Why incarcerated?

Why did he have to die in incarceration, and not amongst his loved ones. Have we become so weak that an old dying person is a threat to the state? —Sajad Lone, Peoples conference president

Price for dissent

Like him, there are many from J&K under detention purely for their ideologies. In today’s India, one pays a price with his life for dissent. —Mehbooba Mufti, PDP president

His youngest son Junaid Ashraf Khan had joined the Hizbul Mujahideen terror outfit in March 2018 and was killed in an encounter in Srinagar on May 19, 2020.

Sehrai was one of those detained during a lockdown ahead of the revocation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories in August 2019. Hailing from Tekipura village in Lolab in Kupwara district, Sehrai joined the Jamaat-e-Islami at a young age and remained associated with Geelani for over six decades. — PTI