Delhi court sentences Kashmiri separatist Asiya Andrabi to life imprisonment in UAPA case

A Delhi court on Tuesday sentenced Kashmiri separatist and Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi to life imprisonment for conspiring to commit a crime against the State. Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh also sentenced Andrabi’s two associates, Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen, to 30 years’ imprisonment in the case.

The court awarded life sentences to Andrabi under Section 18 (punishment for conspiracy) of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 121 A of the erstwhile IPC. According to Section 16 of the UAPA, “Whoever commits a terrorist act shall, if such act has resulted in the death of any person, be punishable with death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

Section 121 A deals with “conspiracy to commit offences punishable by section 121”, while according to Section 121, “Whoever wages war against the Government of India, or attempts to wage such war, or abets the waging of such war, shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.”  The court, however, clarified that the sentences will run concurrently.

Fehmeeda and Nasreen were sentenced to 30 years of simple imprisonment under Section 18 of the UAPA and Section 120B of the IPC.  The three had been sentenced on January 14, following which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had sought life imprisonment for Andrabi, saying she had waged war against India, and a stern message was required to be sent that conspiring against the State would invite the harshest penalty. In its 286-page order, the court had said that Andrabi and her associates hatched a conspiracy for the secession of Kashmir from India. It said the videos submitted by the NIA clearly showed that they repeatedly claimed that Kashmir belonged to Pakistan and was under the forced occupation of India.

The order said, “That Kashmir should be freed from Indian occupation so that it can become part of Pakistan. The material on record is rife with such speeches as well as various posts by all the accused, especially of accused 1 (Andrabi).”  It said that Andrabi, in her speeches and interviews, clearly advocated and sought the support of Pakistan to claim and propagate that Kashmir was never a part of India.

“It is clear that the accused are not merely stating that Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of Partition, rather the above discussion clearly spells out that this aspect is misused by accused persons to support, endorse and propagate that Kashmir is not a part of India,” the court’s order said. It had been observed that the ‘Dukhtaran-E-Millat’ (DeM), an organisation founded by Andrabi, was involved in activities related to the secession of an integral part of India from India on the “pretext of claim of right to self-determination”. “To further these activities, various speeches were made as well as interviews given. There are multiple posts as discussed in preceding paragraphs mentioning the fact of organising/convening by accused persons to encourage and support this aim,” said the court, adding that “the accused have attempted to create a facade that Kashmir is not part of India and is under illegal Indian occupation,” the court had said.  It also said that the accused pushed a narrative to promote that the partition between the two countries, India and Pakistan, was premised on the two-nation theory based on religious background.

Andrabi and her two associates were formally charged with multiple offences under UAPA and the IPC in February 2021.