3 min readSrinagarOct 4, 2022 02:18 AM IST
First published on: Oct 3, 2022 at 11:06 AM IST
The family of jailed separatist Altaf Ahmad Shah has made an urgent appeal to the government for his bail, saying he is not getting proper medical attention despite being diagnosed with cancer.
“My incarcerated father has been diagnosed with acute renal cancer, which has metastasised to his other body parts including his bones,” Shah’s daughter Ruwa Shah tweeted, while tagging the Prime Minister’s office and the Home Ministry.
“It is my whole family’s request to please allow us to see him and consider his bail application on health grounds”.
Shah, the son-in-law of the late Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has been in Tihar jail since 2018 in an alleged terror funding case filed against him and several other separatist leaders by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
He is at present admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in Delhi.
“Docs here refuse to speak to us. The police is not letting us see him. He needs treatment ASAP,” Ruwa tweeted further. “His lungs are not functioning. Oxygen has dropped. They are not letting us see him before they put him on ventilator.”
Ruwa’s appeal for permission to Shah’s family to meet him came a week after she wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing serious concerns over her father’s health.
“My father Mr Altaf Ahmad Shah who is currently incarcerated at Tihar jail in New Delhi was unwell for over two weeks during which he repeatedly requested the jail authorities to take him to a hospital. When he was finally taken to Deendayal hospital Janakpuri, the doctors referred him to Ram Manohar Lohia hospital for further treatment owing to his seemingly critical conditions. However, he was brought back to Tihar jail instead,” she wrote in her letter on September 22.
“When we inquired about his health at the NIA special court and sought his medical reports, we were stunned to know that the jail authorities had submitted prevaricated reports merely mentioning that he had diabetes and hypertension. These reports had no mention of his pneumonia, extremely low haemoglobin and kidney malfunction thus clearly underplaying his cortical condition”.
In her letter, Ruwa appealed for the Prime Minister’s intervention for the immediate medical attention to her father.
“Over the last two days, we have had no whereabouts of him. A sudden sense of panic and anxiety has taken over me and my family because of being absolutely clueless about my father,” she wrote. “I request you earnestly to intervene, allow us to know of his condition immediately, and make the requisite medical help reach him before it is too late”.
On Tuesday, Shah’s daughter Ruwa Shah had tweeted that her “ailing father who’s on ventilator” had not been shifted from RML to AIIMS despite the high court order on Monday. (Facebook/ ruwa.shah) 
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