Poor facility at hostel: J&K detainees’ kin

The place which has been selected (MLA hostel) is not good. There is no proper heating arrangement and rooms were not cleaned

Relative of detained leader

SRINAGAR: A day after 34 detained leaders of mainstream political parties in Kashmir were shifted to the MLA Hostel in Srinagar from the Centaur Hotel, their relatives and friends have complained that the politicians were under constant surveillance through closed circuit television cameras and that the facilities at the new place of detention were poor.on Sunday afternoon, leaders of the NC, PDP and People’s Conference were shifted to the hostel on MA Road. Those who were shifted include People’s Conference chief, Sajad Lone, NC general secretary Ali M Sagar and former civil servant Shah Faesal.

Most of them were detained on August 5, the day the Centre moved to strip J&K of its special status by nullifying Article 370.

“The place which has been selected is not good. There is no proper heating arrangement and the rooms were not cleaned,”said the brother of a detained leader.

Another relative of a detained politician said that CCTVS have been placed even in the lobby.

“There are only two cooks for more than 34 people,” the relative said. They alleged that instead of glass window panes, some windows of the rooms had been covered with ply and tin sheets. “Prominent political leaders are being treated in a very undignified way,” the relative said. A senior officer said many factors triggered the shift, including the escalating cost of lodging the politicians at Centaur and a lack of heating at the hotel. “They have raised a bill of ₹3 crore and government has so far paid around ₹10 lakh which was spent on food. Now the bill could have escalated as the heating arrangements had to be made. At MLA Hostel, the government has its own heating system,” the officer said.