Indian rights activists visit Dr Chishty


Indian rights activists visit Dr Chishty
Kavita Srivastava

On April 14, 2011, Kavita Srivastava of People’s Union of Civil Liberties, India and Anant Bhatnagar, District General Secretary PUCL Ajmer visited Dr Chishty at Central Jail in Ajmer. On April 16, she wrote to Dr Chishty’s family and others working on obtaining his release. “Overall, the jail authorities are also very keen that he go home.”

“He was brought on a stretcher as there was no wheelchair in the hospital ward and also no ramp… The jail authorities were very cooperative and felt that although Dr Chishty could move with a walker, it would have been a tedious affair for him to walk along the compound of the jail and then reach the jail office where the meeting was arranged,” she wrote.

“Dr. Chishty was overwhelmed when he saw that we had come to meet him. One of his distant grandsons Salman Chishty, who is a friend of mine, saw him through a distance. The jail authorities only wanted it to be a meeting of human rights workers.”

The activists also met the jail doctor and obtained Dr Chishty’s full medical report which “shows that he is ok at present.”

The meeting with Dr Chishty lasted more than half hour. “He of course was overwhelmed when I told him that we would send him back home soon. He said that till now all the assurance he had got was of bail maybe. But reaching home was a dream now.”

As a result of that visit, the jail authorities promised to provide Dr Chishty with a list of books available in the prison library to select from. “Incidentally, the Ajmer jail library is very good, it has classics in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and English. Since Dr Chishty is multi-lingual he will be able to read the books in the period he is inside. Anant Bhatnagar promised to take books for him. Dr Chishty also said that now he had learnt Hindi too and was able to read but not write Hindi.

“Dr Chishty spoke at length of his work as a virologist and regretted that his knowledge and skills were never used by the Indian State. Since there was no Institute of Virology in Ajmer, he said that he would have loved to have put his views if they had been taken.”

The Indian activists found Dr Chishty to be “very coherent although he kept saying that it takes him time to remember things and communicate”. He sent his regards to all the family and also spoke fondly of his nephew’s children in Ajmer “with whom he had developed a tremendous relationship and was in tears when was talking about them”.

All those present at a subsequent meeting of human rights activists in Ajmer “decided to work towards Dr Chishty’s release,” wrote the PUCL activist who has since arranged to send a wheelchair for Dr Chishty and resolved to “work on this ramp business with the authorities”.

– Beena Sarwar




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