Political prisoners in New Delhi’s Tihar jail suffer in immense heat

Family members of Kashmiri political prisoners have stated that their incarcerated loved ones are at severe risk due to unprecedented heatwave in New Delhi.

In the final days of May, temperature in parts of Delhi reportedly reached 52.9 degree Celsius, marking the highest ever recorded in India. Reports have emerged of people in Delhi passing away due to heatstroke. 

India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

Hundreds of Kashmiri political prisoners are currently illegally incarcerated in New Delhi’s Tihar jail for their pro-freedom activism and advocacy for Kashmiri right to self-determination. Indian student activists like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam also remain in the same prison. Imam has been assaulted by fellow inmates multiple times while imprisoned, with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom calling for his immediate release.

Tihar jail is a prison complex in India and one of the largest complexes of prisons in Asia. It has 9 functional prisons spread over more than 400 acres. It is considered as one of the worst prisons in India. As of December 2023, Tihar jail has 14,059 inmates against the sanctioned capacity of 5,200, resulting in severe overcrowding and spread of diseases. According to a Human Rights Watch report on prisons, Tihar “endured serious health hazards, including overcrowding, appalling sanitary facilities, and a shortage of medical staff.” 

The Maoist activist Kobad Ghandy who was incarcerated in Tihar for more than six years famously stated that, “In Tihar, unless one is totally insensitive or has thick skin, the jail is structured to crush you.”  

Kashmiris call Tihar jail their Guantánamo. Tihar has a dark history when it comes to Kashmiris. One of the most famous Kashmiri pro-freedom leaders, Maqbool Bhat, was incarcerated there for years before being hanged and buried in the prison. Similarly, Afzal Guru, another innocent Kashmiri was jailed in Tihar before being similarly hanged and buried there. They were denied any proper funeral and the bodies were never returned to their loved ones, who continue to await their return. 

The treatment of Kashmiris in prisons like Tihar barely upholds any standard practices. They are subjected to torture, physical and psychological, and inhumane treatment. They are detained in overcrowded spaces, that lack ventilation, and despite their status as political prisoners, they are kept with dreaded criminals. They are denied the right to adequate food, hygienic clothes, or even cleaning supplies. Medical attention is denied to those who suffer from serious illnesses.

Recently, a Kashmiri political prisoner named Altaf Shah, incarcerated in Tihar for 6 years, “died” during the imprisonment. The family of Shah maintains that his death was a murder, as he was denied lifesaving medical healthcare needed for his renal cancer. His family had made several appeals for release on bail or access to better medical care for Shah, who also suffered from hypertension and diabetes for years, putting him in a high-risk category during India’s coronavirus pandemic lockdown. All the appeals were ignored or turned down. 

In July, 2018, the jail’s security personnel had severely beaten and tortured the inmates, a majority of whom were Kashmiri Muslims, after prisoners objected to their pillows and blankets being seized. A Delhi High court had called the attack a “horrific tale of custodial violence”, with one of the Kashmiri victims of the attack, Shahid, handing a blood-soaked vest to his lawyer as evidence of the police torture. 

Speaking to us, a family member of a woman Kashmiri political prisoner stated, “The skin of our women prisoners is peeling off in the heat of Tihar (jail). They keep towels dipped in water on their heads to survive. High voltage bulbs are kept on all day that also emit additional heat and you are not allowed to turn them off.”

Pro-freedom Kashmiri female activists like Asiya Andrabi, Sofi Fehmeeda, and Nahida Nasreen, are incarcerated in Tihar since 2018. Fehmeeda, in her 30s, cannot move without a wheelchair. Prison doctors have recommended her to undergo urgent back surgery. Despite her critical state of health, she has not been shifted to any hospital.

The female prison in Tihar, called Jail No. 6, is headed by a pro-Modi Brahmin police officer who has been particularly hostile to Kashmiri female political prisoners. She has cut off their medicines routinely and does not respond to any petitions made to her.

Kashmiri prisoners, who already suffer from various ailments and a denial of medical healthcare, have not been allowed any means of cooling in this severe heat. When they requested the jail authorities that they would buy a cooler through their own money, that request was turned down as well. 

The family members who have sent lighter clothes to prison have also complained that the prison authorities are not allowing the clothes to reach their incarcerated loved ones. Prisoners have also informed their loved ones of skin-burns and frequent blackouts due to heat. 

According to the families of Kashmiri political prisoners who communicate with their loved ones, notorious criminals including gangsters and rapists are allowed means of cooling as they bribe the jail officials. Such a privilege though is not extended to Kashmiri political prisoners who are stripped of their fundamental rights.

Almost all the Kashmiri political prisoners are under-trial prisoners, meaning that they have not faced any conviction.

The 20-year-old daughter of one Kashmiri political prisoner in Tihar, while talking to us, stated that “Our loved ones are not treated as humans. They are political prisoners and political prisoners always have basic rights during their incarceration. But our prisoners are treated as expendable, as though their lives do not matter.”

“They are pushed to the brink of death and when they die, their deaths are misrepresented as natural death due to medical reasons”, she added. 

Kashmiri political prisoners are at a higher risk as their bodies are not acclimatized at all to the climate of Delhi. This climate is foreign to them as the temperature in Kashmir barely ever rises above 35 degrees Celsius. The highest temperature reliably recorded is 38.3 degrees Celsius, recorded as early July 1946. The temperature in Kashmir averages at 30 degrees Celsius this week. This is way below the average temperature in Delhi this summer, which revolves around 45 degrees Celsius. 

It is clear that the state’s incarceration of Kashmiri political prisoners in such an environment that is hostile to their bodies, and then the denial of any relief to them, is a systematic way of torturing them. In the words of a family member of an incarcerated Kashmiri political prisoner, “this is India’s weaponization of climate-change against Kashmiri prisoners.”