A court in Delhi’s National Investigation Authority (NIA) sentenced Kashmir separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment after being convicted in connection with a terrorist financing case in Jammu & Kashmir on May 10.
A special court on Wednesday sentenced Kashmir’s separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment for a terrorist funding case that caused the voluntary closure of Srinagar’s main markets and the violent political reaction of Jammu and Kashmir. Mobile internet has been shut down “as a precaution” in some parts of the Kashmir Valley.
Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was arrested by the NIA in 2019 in connection with a 2017 inter-terrorist funding case.
In its FIR, the NIA said Kashmiri separatists were getting money from Pakistan, including Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Syed Salahuddin of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, to incite unrest in the valley by hurling stones and burning schools and organize strikes and demonstrations.
The NIA investigative report states, “Yasin Malik has been involved in more than 65 criminal cases. These are mostly assassinations, targeted assassinations, riots, and seductions. Yasin Malik was involved in the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and was also implicated in the murder of four Indian Air Force personnel in the early 1990s.
JKLF was established by Amanullah Khan with Maqbool Bhat in Birmingham in June 1976 from the former branch of the “Plebiscite Front” in the United Kingdom. It created an office in Muzaffarabad Pakistan in Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and started sabotage operations in Jammu and Kashmir soon after and became the main militant group in the valley. Malik is said to have entered the group in the late 80s after returning from Pakistan with weapons training.
In August 1990, Malik was arrested in a wounded state. He was detained until May 1994. Hamid Sheikh was also arrested in 1992 but was released by border security forces to fight pro-Pakistan guerrillas.
After being released on bail in May 1994, Malik announced an indefinite ceasefire with the JKLF.
In March 2020, Malik and six associates were arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), the Arms Act 1959 and Ranbir Penal Code for the attack on 40 Indian Air Force faculty in Rawalpora, Srinagar on 25 January 1990. During the seizure, four IAFs members died.
Lifetime imprisonment for Yasin Malik:-
Sec. 120B of IPC: imprisonment for 10 years and 10,000 rupees fine.
Sec. 121 of IPC: life imprisonment.
Sec. 121A of IPC: imprisonment for 10 years and 10,000 rupees fine.
Sec. 17 of UAPA: life imprisonment and 10 lakh rupees fine.
Sec. 18 of UAPA: imprisonment for 10 years and 10,000 rupees fine.
Sec 20 of UAPA: imprisonment for 10 years and 10,000 rupees fine.
Sec 38 and 39 of UAPA: imprisonment for 5 years and 5,000 rupees fine.
Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act
Also read: In Texas School Shooting, 18 Children and 3 adults died in a horrific incident.