Naming politicians won’t clear Yasin: NIA to Delhi HC

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that taking the names of senior politicians and bureaucrats does not absolve separatist leader Yasin Malik or negate his links with militants like Hafiz Saeed.

The NIA filed a rejoinder to Malik’s reply to its plea for enhancing his life sentence in a terror-funding case to death penalty and asserted that the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief was “well connected with multiple terrorist organisations and with supporters of the terrorist organisation LeT” and that he dropped names of senior politicians, media personnel, foreign delegates and bureaucrats to gain popularity and draw public sympathy.

The NIA stated that Mailk cannot be permitted to “revisit” the matter when the charges against him have already culminated into his conviction and ample opportunity was given to him to raise objections. A bench of justices Navin Chawla and Ravidner Dudeja took the NIA’s rejoinder on record and listed the agency’s appeal for hearing on July 21. The bench also told Malik, who was virtually appearing from Tihar jail, that a copy of the rejoinder would be supplied to him through the jail authorities.

In his reply filed to the NIA’s appeal, Malik had earlier said that he spent nearly three decades as a key figure in a state-sanctioned “backchannel” mechanism, working with a succession of prime ministers, intelligence chiefs, and even business tycoons to foster peace in Jammu and Kashmir.

In an 85-page affidavit, Malik shared details about his journey — from his school days to links with terrorists and meetings with political leaders. “The convict himself has admitted that he was the commander-in-chief of JKLF. The rest of the matters (in the reply) related to taking names of senior politicians, media personnel, foreign delegates and bureaucrats is only for the sake of gaining popularity and to draw sympathy of the public and has no bearing with the merit of the instant case. It is most respectfully submitted that the mere mention of names of senior politicians and senior bureaucrats does not negate the fact that the convicted accused had linkages with militant Hafiz Saeed and other militants,” the NIA said in its rejoinder.

“Yasin Malik has admitted that he was the commander-in-chief of JKLF and he has himself admitted the fact that he was having a connection with Sayeed Salauddin, chief of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen,” it added.

The NIA, in the rejoinder, also took exception to Malik calling himself a “good sacrificial goat”, stating that such statements were unfair to the judicial process.

Asserting that the case against Malik was based on evidence and not hearsay or “emotional narrations”, the NIA said there was material demonstrating that he was in “contact with the top leadership of Pakistan, including the Prime Minister, the President, senators of the Pakistani Senate, and the chief ministers of all provinces, and was using such contacts to propagate narratives against India and to further the secessionist agenda in Jammu & Kashmir”.

The agency further said Malik’s averments on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits during the 1990s and his sympathy towards them was entirely irrelevant to the instant case.

Similarly, his narratives concerning deceased militant Burhan Wani, his encounter by law enforcement agencies and the subsequent disturbances in law and order was also entirely immaterial, the agency added.

A trial court in Delhi awarded Malik life sentence on May 24, 2022, after holding him guilty of various offences under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The NIA filed an appeal in 2023 in the high court seeking enhancement of his life term to the maximum punishment of the death penalty.

In its plea before the high court for enhancement of sentence to the death penalty, the NIA said if such “dreaded terrorists” are not given capital punishment on account of pleading guilty, there would be complete erosion of the sentencing policy and the terrorists would have a way out to avoid capital punishment.

A life sentence, the NIA asserted, is not commensurate with the crime committed by terrorists when the nation and families of soldiers have suffered loss of lives and the trial court’s conclusion that Malik’s crimes did not fall within the category of the “rarest of the rare cases” for grant of the death penalty is “ex-facie legally flawed and completely unsustainable”.

In the reply, Malik said, “Being a scapegoat in politics isn’t a new thing, it’s a kind of a new normal but being a sacrificial goat is something which goes beyond the shard of high-handedness of morality, if at all politics had one”.