In a case involving terrorist and separatist activities that disrupted Jammu & Kashmir in 2017, a Delhi court has framed charges against Yasin Malik, a leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The court has framed charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on 15 people including Yasin Malik.
According to the court, it was an “orchestrated conspiracy,” and their strategy was directly out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. According to Special Judge Parveen Singh, the charge was held by people sitting across the border in Pakistan such as the ISI, and each of the masterminds, knowing every other conspirator, was playing his own role as per the mastermind’s directions in order to create a symphony of “bloodshed, violence, mayhem, and destruction” with the ultimate goal of separation of Jammu & Kashmir.
The court stated that it was prima facie established that there existed a criminal conspiracy through which large-scale protests were coordinated, culminating in widespread violence and destruction. The court also stated that a criminal conspiracy was hatched with the ultimate goal of secession of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India, and within that conspiracy, another conspiracy was concocted to stage certain acts of violence in order to achieve the original goal. The court observed that the secondary conspiracy involved terror-related acts and hence invited UAPA charges on people involved including Yasin Malik.
“It has been argued that these were intended to be peaceful protests following the Gandhian path. However, the evidence prima facie speaks otherwise. Not only were the protests violent, they were intended to be violent… Thus, prima facie their plan was straight from the playbook of the likes of Hitler and the march of the Brownshirts. The object was to overawe the government by the sheer scale of violence and was nothing less than a plan for insurrection,” the court observed.
The court also ascertained Hurriyat to have plotted with terrorist organizations for the same goal. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Md Yusuf Shah, Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, Shabir Ahmad Shah, MasaratAlam, Abdul Rashid Sheikh, and Naval Kishore Kapoor are among those indicted.
Yasin Malik
Yasin Malik was an active participant in the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir. He is the former president of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and a pro-Pakistan separatist politician. He is charged with supporting terrorism in Kashmir. He was detained in connection with terrorism funding and perpetration on Indian soil. In addition, he is accused of kidnapping former Chief Minister and then Home Minister Mufti Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Saeed.
Yasin Malik is also charged with the assassination of four Air Force officers in January 1990. Yasin Mallik and other JKLF terrorists murdered Sqn Ldr Ravi Khanna, one of four Indian Air Force men.
Despite his terrorist connections and role in the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits in the valley, former governments and the media elite have frequently attempted to depict Yasin Malik as a ray of hope and savior of the Kashmiris.
