Hizbul chief’s 2 sons in Tihar jail approach HC, say let us phone our family

NEW DELHI: Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin’s two sons, who are presently in Tihar Jail in a terror funding case, have approached the Delhi high court to restore their phone call facility, complaining that they have been unable to speak with their family for a year after the facility was denied by jail authorities.

Syed Ahmad Shakeel and Syed Shahid Yusuf have asked the high court to direct jail authorities to restore the phone call facility available to inmates.

Their father, Syed Salahuddin founded the terror group Hizbul Mujahideen and is a designated global terrorist and is wanted in India for his role in orchestrating terror attacks in the country.

Shakeel and Yusuf were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with a 2011 terror funding case in Jammu and Kashmir involving hawala transactions. Yusuf was arrested in October 2017 while Shakeel was taken into custody in August 2018.

Their request came up for hearing before a bench of chief justice DK Upadhyay and justice Tushar Rao Gedela on Friday but the case was put off to May 22.

The application was filed in their pending petition challenging the constitutionality of Rule 631 of the Delhi Prisons Rules, 2018. This rule, which relates to high risk inmates, only allows prisoners to avail communication facilities after getting approval of the Deputy Inspector General.

Those covered by the provision include people charged with offences against the state, terrorist activities and heinous crimes, and under laws such as the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, the National Security Act and the Public Safety Act and who are frequently involved in assaulting co-inmates.

In his petition, Shakeel alleged that the rule was invoked to initially reduce the permissible number of phone calls from five calls per week to only one per week. He said the facility was completely withdrawn for him in April 2024 and that he had been unable to contact his family in Kashmir since then.

In January this year, the high court issued notice on Shakeel’s petition and prima facie observed that the denial of regular telephonic and electronic communication to a prisoner involved in terrorist activities and offences such as MCOCA and Public Safety Act, without adequate safeguards, could not be considered “arbitrary or unreasonable”.

“Rule 631 of the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018 clearly indicates that such facilities are denied to the prisoners “in the interest of public safety and order. Clearly, the said guiding principles cannot be faulted. Thus, the denial of the facilities in question is not absolute and is permissible where public interest and safety is not compromised,” the high court said in its order.