Pakistan asks UN to ensure release of Kashmiri prisoners

Additionally, Pakistan has conveyed its deep concerns to the UN over the death of jailed Kashmiri resistance leader Mohammed Ashraf Sehrai in Indian custody.

Sehrai died at the age of 78 in Indian police custody after fighting injustices for well over five decades. Indian officials have said that Sehrai was taken to a hospital on Tuesday from a jail in South Jammu. His official cause of death was stated to be complications of the novel coronavirus.

Sehrai's son, Mujahid Sehrai, said his father was denied proper medical care in jail and complained of ill health when they spoke several days ago. "He told us several times in the last few months during his two phone calls a week to home that he was not getting proper medical treatment," his son said.

Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, in a letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres, urged him to press New Delhi to immediately release all prisoners illegally detained in  the region. Citing the coronavirus pandemic that has gripped India, and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the valley, Akram urged the UN to ask Indian government to immediately release illegally detained political prisoners.

On Saturday, Indian Supreme Court asked the Narendra Modi government to de-congest all jail's, for fear that the coronavirus might spread in the overcrowded centers.