Jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik hospitalised, said to be stable

New Delhi, July 27: Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik, who was on a hunger strike in Tihar Jail here, has been admitted to the RML hospital following a fluctuation in blood pressure, sources said on Wednesday, adding he is stable.

Malik has submitted a letter to the doctors at the medical facility, saying he did not want to be treated, they said. "He was admitted to RML hospital on Tuesday after fluctuation in his BP levels," a source said. His condition was reported to be stable by evening and his vitals were being monitored, the sources said.

Malik (56), head of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), began his indefinite hunger strike on Friday morning after the Centre did not respond to his plea that he be allowed to physically appear in a Jammu court hearing the Rubaiya Sayeed abduction case, in which he is an accused.

The separatist leader, who was kept in solitary confinement in a high-risk cell in Tihar's prison number 7, was shifted to the prison's medical investigation room where he was being given IV fluids. Hurriyat Conference headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Wednesday expressed serious concern over the health and safety of Malik. The JKLF chief is serving a life sentence in a terror-funding case.

Appearing before a special CBI judge through a video-conference on July 13, Malik had said he wanted to physically appear in the case related to the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Union home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, in 1989.

The separatist leader had said he would like to personally cross-examine the prosecution witnesses and would wait for a government nod till July 22. He had also said he would sit on an indefinite hunger strike inside the jail if his plea was not allowed. Malik began his protest when he received no information from the government on his plea to shift him to a prison in Jammu.