Sehrai’s last words: “They have brought me here to kill so do not make efforts for my release”
Srinagar, May 07 (KMS): “They have brought me here to kill me, so don’t make efforts to release me and continue your normal activities,” said senior APHC leader and Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir Chairman, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, during the last conversation he had with his son, Mujahid Ashraf on phone.
Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai died in Indian custody in Jammu on Wednesday.
Mujahid Ashraf, in a media interview in his native Tikipora area of Kupwara, said, he doesn’t expect any justice from the Indian authorities. He added that Allah had chosen his father for a noble cause and he is satisfied with the decision. He said the Indian government was responsible for his father’s death as it kept a 78-year-old man in custody without providing him any medical treatment despite suffering from many ailments.
“We used to send medicine for our father from home, which he used to take, but he was not been taken for check-up during the last ten months in jail,” he said, adding that his father was suffering from high blood pressure, heart and many other complex diseases while many new tests were not done on him in the jail to find out the nature of his ailments.
Mujahid Sehrai said that in prison his father was provided food which the doctors had forbidden him to eat because of the nature of his diseases as a result of which his health deteriorated with each passing day. He lamented that his father was only taken to hospital when he was close to death. He said that he last talked to his father last Monday and he (father) told him that he was very ill, having severe back pain, feeling dizziness and was not able to stand up.
Mujahid Ashraf said that his father was fasting regularly but his eyesight was very weak and he was having difficulty in reciting the Holy Qur’an. He said, “We regret we were not with him at the last moment, it is a matter of great sorrow and regret for us.”
Talking about his father’s life, Mujahid Ashraf said, when he used to go to Syed Ali Gilani’s office in Hyderpora, Srinagar, he would have a few rupees, out of which he had to pay rent to reach the office and that he used to pay for the lunch there with the same money. He maintained that whenever Ashraf Sehrai used the office phone for personal use, he (Ashraf Sehrai) used to pay for such calls.
“Our father taught the basic principles of Islam to us and urged us to stay away from forbidden things,” he said. Mujahid Ashraf added that he had spent very little time with his father, who spent most part of his life in jail. “Once when I was a child, one day when he came home after being released from jail, I came close to him and started pressing his legs. He could not recognize me and inquired about me from the people sitting there leaving them amazed,” he maintained.
Mujahid Ashraf said that his father had spent his whole life with Syed Ali Gilani and he held him in high esteem. He added that his father would become very sad if he saw any wrongdoing.
He said that he had filed a petition in the High Court for the release of his father but the judges were reluctant to hear his case and would often leave the court room when the turn to hear his case would come.
“We were six siblings, one of whom, Junaid, was martyred last year,” he said, adding that Junaid was also a very passionate young man who would never tolerate injustice or any malpractice and dishonest behaviour.
Mujahid Ashraf said their family has seen very difficult times and had to sell a lot of their land to meet the daily expanses as his father was kept in jail again and again. He said that he was very happy that Allah had chosen his father for the righteous path for which he sacrificed his life.
