On May 25, Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Special NIA court for terror funding activities in Jammu and Kashmir. The court convicted him under UAPA on May 19. He had pleaded guilty earlier in the case, admitting that he had been associated with terror funding activities in Jammu and Kashmir on May 10. NIA had sought the death penalty for Malik.
Malik was reportedly awarded two life imprisonment sentences, besides 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for 10 offences and a Rs 10 lakhs financial penalty. However, all the punishments were ordered to run concurrently.
Earlier, Malik had told the court he did not wish to challenge the charges against him. Malik has been in jail since 2019 as a part of the crackdown against the anti-India and secessionist elements in the Valley in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack. He was later remanded to the NIA custody and was shifted to Delhi’s Tihar jail from Jammu’s Kot Balwal jail.
Malik is also accused of kidnapping former Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Saeed’s daughter Rubiya Saeed in 1989 and killing 5 IAF personnel in early 1990. He is also allegedly involved in the killing of Justice Neelkanth Ganju, the judge who had ordered the death sentence for JKLF terrorist Maqbool Bhatt, and the murder of the former director of Doordarshan Kendra in Srinagar, Lassa Kaul.
Notably, the Court has formally framed charges against other Kashmiri separatist leaders accused in the case including Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate, Shabbir Shah, Masarat Alam, Md Yusuf Shah, Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Khan, Md Akbar Khanday, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Abdul Rashid Sheikh and Naval Kishore Kapoor.