Srinagar: Jailed Kashmiri leader Altaf Ahmad Shah passed away at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi early on Tuesday, his family said.
His daughter Ruwa Shah confirmed the death.
“Abu (father) breathed his last at AIIMS, New Delhi. As a prisoner,” Ruwa tweeted.
Altaf Shah, son-in-law of late Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in 2017, along with other separatist leaders, in an alleged terror funding case and was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
Sixty-six-year-old Shah, according to the family, was diagnosed with renal cancer that spread to other parts of his body.
His family had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to consider his bail application on health grounds.
The family later moved the Delhi High Court and on October 1 it ordered that Shah be shifted to AIIMS in Delhi.
Shah’s son Anees ul Islam, a Research Officer in Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre was terminated from service by the J&K government in October 2021 under section 311 (2) (C) for being a “threat to the security of the state”.