Prisoners complain of inhuman treatment, being kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to meet families since March

NEW DELHI – Six convicted prisoners in the Bhopal central jail have been shifted to the jail hospital after their health deteriorated on Saturday night, Hindustan Times reported quoting jail superintendent. They all belong to the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

They have been on hunger strike for the past one week protesting against inhuman treatment, they complain, they are being given in the jail. Haider Nagori, brother of one of the six prisoners Safdar Nagori, told Clarion India that jail authorities have not informed his family about the well-being of Safdar. He said he came to know about the development through newspapers. Apparently, families of other five prisoners, too, are unaware of the situation inside the jail.

Besides Safdar Nagori, those hospitalised are: Mohammad Ansar, Saduli PA, Shibily, Qammruddin Nagori and Hafiz Hussain. They are serving life sentence given by Indore Sessions Court in 2017. They were held guilty of collecting arms and waging war against the government of India. They are also facing cases in several courts throughout India.

Haider said his family has not been allowed to see Safdar ever since lockdown was announced in March.

The jail superintendent does not pick his call and the online app developed by Bhopal jail to request for meeting jail inmates rejects their application as soon as they enter the details of Safdar Nagori. Family members of other SIMI prisoners have reported similar experience, Haider said.

Hindustan Times reported, Madhuri, a human rights activist, that the SIMI prisoners have been harassed by jail authorities for the past three years. “Recently Qamaruddin moved an application in Ahmedabad court, where he and other five are facing a trial for Sabarmati jailbreak, against physical and mental torture on him,” Madhuri said.

Besides the six, there are four more convicted SIMI prisoners and 28 undertrials SIMI members in Bhopal jail. According to Bhopal central jail superintendent Dinesh Nargave, 18 had been shifted to solitary confinement.

In 2017, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) conducted two investigations into complaints that convicted and undertrial prisoners were facing torture and inhuman treatment – including religious slurs against their Muslim identity – in the Bhopal Central Jail. Both investigations concluded that the prisoners were facing physical and mental torture at the hands of prison authorities, and even highlighted the illegality of their continued solitary confinement. Almost three years later, neither the jail authorities nor the state government of Madhya Pradesh has taken note of the findings of a statutory body formed under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.

Recently, a letter sneaked from inside the Bhopal jail revealed that torture and inhuman treatment of the said prisoners continue unabated. The letter has been written by Safdar Nagori, one of the six on hunger strike. The undated letter gives a chilling account of the treatment the jail authorities are giving to its inmates classified as ‘SIMI prisoners’. They are denied “almost all human rights which, otherwise, are available to all other prisoners as mandated by the Jail-Manual-Rules,” says the letter. It says ever since Nagori and his co-prisoners were shifted from Ahmedabad to Bhopal in May 2017, they have been facing physical and mental torture. They were received at the jail with beating and all sorts of abuses that continue till date.

Threats, expletives and religious slurs are routine because of which, Nagori says, he is living in constant phobia. He says if he complains or if they suspect that he has conveyed his mistreatment to his family or lawyer, he faces more beatings. He is told that he would be lodged with Hindutva brigades who would finish him; he would be killed in fake encounter; he would be injected with AIDS; he would be implicated in fake cases thus spoiling his jail records, and many such other threats.

Seen in the background of the letter, the SIMI Prisoners’ current hunger strike and their hospitalisation are worrisome.