Court says crime intended to strike at idea of India
STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: Delhi court on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment to Yasin Malik, one of the foremost separatist leaders of Jammu and Kashmir, in a terror funding case, saying the crimes were intended to strike at the “heart of the idea of India” and intended to forcefully secede J&K from Union of India.
Special Judge Praveen Singh awarded varying jail terms to Malik for offences under the stringent anti-terror law–Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the IPC, rejecting the NIA’s plea for capital punishment.
He said the crimes for which Malik was convicted were of very serious nature.
Life comes full circle for Malik
New Delhi: From a Pakistan-trained militant to one of the prominent separatist faces in Kashmir, life has come a full circle for chief of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Yasin Malik who was in limelight for varied reasons over the past three decades of turmoil in the erstwhile restive border state.
The 56-year-old Malik, who has been sentenced to a life term by an NIA court here, has been in and out of jail several times dating back to his student activism days before the onset of militancy in 1990.
Claiming to having renounced the path of violence and donned the political cloak in 1994, Malik, who is married to a Pakistani artist and has a 10-year-old daughter, had announced Gandhian way of protest after his release and was perceived to be a moderate voice in the separatist camp.
He was arrested in early 2019 in connection with a 2017 terror-funding case registered by National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Born on April 3, 1966 in Maisuma locality in the heart of Srinagar, Malik is also facing trial in the much-publicized abduction case of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 1989, and an attack by JKLF militants on IAF personnel in Srinagar that left four dead and many others injured in 1990.
Malik started his anti-national activities at a very young age in 1980s when he formed Tala party which was involved in an attempt to disrupt the 1983 cricket match between India and West Indies in the Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar besides staging a protest against the hanging of JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on February 11, 1984.
After undergoing detention for months together on different occasions, Malik’s activities increased after his Tala party was renamed as Islamic Students League (ISL) that campaigned vigorously for Muslim United Front (MUF) candidates in the 1987 assembly elections.
The MUF candidates including Mohammad Yousuf Shah lost the elections amid allegations of mass rigging. Shah alias Syed Sallahuddin is now the supreme commander of banned Hizbul Mujahideen based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Both Shah and Malik were prominent faces among many others arrested for several months in the aftermath of the elections without a formal charge.
After his release, Malik was among the first batch of youths who crossed the Line of Control (LoC) into PoK for arms training in 1988 to join JKLF.
Malik along with Hameed Sheikh, Ashfaq Wani and Javed Mir formed the core group of the JKLF. While Wani died in a gunfight with security forces in March 1990, Malik was captured in an injured condition in August 1990 and remained imprisoned till May 1994. Sheikh and six other JKLF militants were killed at Ali Kadal in downtown Srinagar on November 19, 1992, while Mir is now heading a separate faction of JKLF.
After his release on bail in May 1994, Malik declared an indefinite unilateral ceasefire to follow non-violent struggle for so-called “independence” of Jammu and Kashmir from both India and Pakistan.
Pakistan-based JKLF founder Amanullah Khan removed Malik as the president of the party in 1995. However, Malik in return expelled Khan from the chairmanship and enjoyed support from his party colleagues in Pakistan and abroad.
He joined as a member of the powerful executive body of Hurriyat Conference, an amalgam of various separatist organisations, which was formed in 1993 but adopted a neutral stance when the conglomerate split between hardliners and moderates in September 2003.
He married Mushaal Hussein Mullick, an alumnus of the London School of Economics (LSE), in 2009 and the couple has a 10-year-old daughter, Razia Sultana, who lives with her mother in Pakistan.
Malik had an opportunity to meet world leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and also visited the US for medical treatment in 2001.
His sharing a dais with banned Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed at a protest in Islamabad in February 2013 against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was widely condemned in India.
He was also part of separatist leaders who visited PoK aboard ‘Karvan-e-Aman’ (peace caravan), a bus service started as a confidence building measure between the two divided parts of India and Pakistan on April 7, 2005.
Malik, who actively campaigned for boycott of elections, was arrested in 1999 under Public Safety Act (PSA) and released in 2002.
He was also in limelight for a campaign by his group, known as ‘Safar-i-Azadi’ (journey of freedom), in 2007 to garner support for the right of self-determination for the people in Jammu and Kashmir.
These crimes were intended to strike at the heart of the idea of India and intended to forcefully secede J&K from UOI. The crime becomes more serious as it was committed with the assistance of foreign powers and designated terrorists. The seriousness of crime is further increased by the fact that it was committed behind the smokescreen of an alleged peaceful political movement, the judge said.
The judge said the manner in which the crimes were committed was in the form of conspiracy whereby there was an attempted insurrection by instigating, stone pelting and arson, and a very large-scale violence led to shutting of the government machinery.
He, however, noted that the manner of the commission of crime, the kind of weaponry that was used, led him to a conclusion that the crime in question would fail the test of rarest of rare case as laid down by the Supreme Court.
The court sentenced the JKLF leader to life in jail for two offences under section 121 (waging war against the Government of India) of IPC and section 17 (raising funds for terrorist act) of the UAPA.
During the hearing, Malik contended he had given up violence in the year 1994.
After the ceasefire in the year 1994, he had declared that he would follow the peaceful path of Mahatma Gandhi and engage in a non-violent political struggle. He has further contended that since then there is no evidence against him that in the last 28 years he had provided any hideout to any militant or had provided any logistic support to any terrorist organisation, the court noted from Malik’s submission.
Malik told the court he had met all the prime ministers since the time of V P Singh till Atal Bihari Vajpayee who engaged with him and gave him a political platform.
Government of India had provided him all the platforms to express his opinion in India as well as outside, and government cannot be considered to be a fool to give an opportunity to a person who was engaged in terrorist acts. He has further contended that it has been alleged that he was engaged in acts of violence in the valley post the killing of Burhan Wani.
“However, immediately after the death of Burhan Wani, he was arrested and remained in custody till November 2016. Therefore, he could not have engaged in violent protests, the judge said.
On NIA’s submission that Malik was responsible for the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits and their exodus, the judge said since the issue is not before the court and has not been adjudicated upon it cannot allow itself to be swayed by the argument.
I accordingly find that this case does not call for awarding death sentence as demanded, the judge said, rejecting NIA’s plea for awarding Malik capital punishment.
On Malik’s submission that he gave up the gun in 1994 and, thereafter, he was recognised as a legitimate political player, the judge said, In my opinion, there was no reformation of this convict.
It may be correct that the convict may have given up the gun in the year 1994, but he had never expressed any regret for the violence he had committed prior to the year 1994.
“It is to be noticed that, when he claimed to have given up the path of violence after the year 1994, the government of India took it upon its face value and gave him an opportunity to reform, and in good faith, tried to engage in a meaningful dialogue with him, and as admitted by him, gave him every platform to express his opinion, the judge said.
However, the convict did not desist from violence, he noted.
Rather, betraying the good intentions of government he took a different path to orchestrate violence in the guise of political struggle. The convict has claimed that he had followed Gandhian principle of non-violence and was spearheading a peaceful non-violent struggle.
“However, the evidence on the basis of which charges were framed and to which convict has pleaded guilty, speaks otherwise, the judge noted.
The entire movement, he said, was planned to be violent.
I must observe here that the convict cannot invoke the Mahatma and claim to be his follower because in Mahatma Gandhi’s principles there was no place for violence, howsoever high the objective might be. It only took one small incident of violence at Chauri Chaura for the Mahatma to call off the entire non-cooperation movement,” the judge said.
He noted that Malik, despite the large-scale of violence engulfing the valley, neither condemned it nor withdrew his calendar of protest.
The judge said, in the present case, the primary consideration for awarding sentence should be that it should serve as deterrence for those who seek to follow a similar path.
The court awarded Malik 10 year jail term each under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war against the government of India) of IPC and sections 15 (terrorism), 18 (conspiracy for terrorism) and 20 (being member of terror organisation) of UAPA.
It also awarded five year jail term each under sections 13 (unlawful act), 38 (offence related to membership of terrorism) and 39 (support given to terrorism) of UAPA.
All the sentences will run concurrently.
The court premises was under heavy security blanket through the day, with police and paramilitary forces standing guard.
Before Malik was brought into the courtoom, personnel from the NIA, the anti-terror federal agency, pressed into service sniffer dogs and conducted a thermal scanning.
After the pronouncement of the sentence, a group of people raised the Indian tricolour and shouted slogans against Malik outside the court premises.
Parts of Srinagar observed a shutdown ahead of the court’s order.
Most of the shops and business establishments in Maisuma and adjoining areas, including some in Lal Chowk, were shut. Shops in some areas of the old city were also closed, but public transport was normal.
Clashes erupted between supporters of Malik, the JKLF chairman, and security forces in Maisuma locality in Srinagar.