India’s notorious Tihar Jail of New Delhi is for the freedom loving Kashmiris as the maximum-security prison of Robben Island was for the South Africans, where their political leadership, mostly black, remained incarcerated from the mid-1960s to 1991.
It represents the aspiration and determination of 13.5 million people of Jammu and Kashmir state across both sides of the Line of Control, which is personified by their leadership jailed in Tihar Jail.
Tihar has rather become a revolutionary idea, while the bleeding Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) represents the revolutionary action. The idea of freedom gets fomented in the held valley and gets plummeted in Tihar and other Indian jails where the Kashmiri political detainees are suffering from increased human rights abuses.
The Government of India can incarcerate the champions of freedom, but it cannot incarcerate their idea of freedom. Every household in the IIOJK has a perpetual desire for freedom from the Indian yoke for the last 75 years, which has intensified after the revocation of special status of Kashmir on August 05, 2019.
Among the Kashmiri freedom fighters is Mussarat Alam Butt, Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference in the IIOJK who is behind bars in Tihar Jail. Hailing from the thickly populated Tankipura locality of Habaqadal area of occupied Srinagar, he got orphaned in childhood and was raised by his uncles.
Since his childhood, Mussarat grew with the desire of freedom. He emerged as one of the most prominent liberation leaders in the Amarnath land row of 2008. Fearing his popularity among the youth, the Indian government put him in Tihar Jail, where he has been languishing till date. Off and on he had been put in isolation in the Hindoli jail. His wife and only son have no source of income to feed themselves. They have not met him since 2008 as they could not bear the travelling expenses for New Delhi.
