Jailed Kashmir anti-India leader dies in police custody
By SHEIKH SAALIQ
Associated Press
NEW DELHI (AP) — Altaf Ahmad Shah, a prominent politician in Kashmir who challenged India’s rule over the disputed region for decades and had been jailed by Indian authorities for the past five years, has died while in police custody. Shah’s family said the 66-year-old died Monday night at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Shah was held in New Delhi’s Tihar jail after his 2017 arrest in a “terror-funding case.” He is the fourth separatist leader from India-controlled Kashmir to die in police custody in the last three years. Shah was part of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, an anti-India political group, and one of the staunchest supporters of demands for Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan.