On February 6, 2003, Anjum Zamarud Habib, a young political activist from Kashmir, was arrested in Delhi, convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and sentenced to five years in Delhi's notorious Tihar jail. Her crime? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as well as being the chairperson of the Muslim Khawateen Markaz and a member of the Hurriyat Conference, which disputes India's claim to Jammu and Kashmir.

In this passionate and rare first-hand account by a Muslim woman in Tihar jail, Habib describes the shock and bewilderment of arrest; the pain of realizing that there...