Covid India: How prisons became sitting ducks during the pandemic

Jailed Indian activist Umar Khalid woke up with a fever and a body ache in his Tihar prison cell in April this year. He immediately went to the jail’s medical facility to get tested for Covid-19, but was sent back with a few medicines.

He finally got a Covid test, which came back positive, only after six days of symptoms and a court order, according to an account Khalid, who was arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) back in September 2020, wrote in a column for The Print.

Khalid has since recovered from Covid, but there are many in India’s over-occupied jails who haven’t been as lucky. Lawyers say there’s one refrain they hear time and again from clients: “We may die inside.”