Indian court to take up plea seeking death sentence for Yasin Malik in August

ANKARA (AA): An Indian court has fixed the hearing of a plea seeking the death penalty for jailed Kashmiri freedom-fighter Yasin Malik in an alleged “terror-funding” case for August 9.

Last week, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) approached Delhi High Court and sought the death sentence for the widely respected Muslim leader serving life imprisonment in a Delhi jail.

The move was criticized by many political leaders in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, including a former chief minister.

As the hearing of the case began before a division bench of Delhi High Court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the NIA, said: “Propagating one region to be separated from the country makes the case ‘rarest of rare’.”

The court, issuing a notice to Malik in the case, ordered the matter be listed on August 9.

During the hearing, Mehta went as far as to compare Malik with slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Last year, a trial court awarded life term to Malik in an alleged “terror funding” case. The partially paralyzed, ailing leader had pleaded guilty without contesting the charges. The trial court had rejected the NIA’s plea for capital punishment and handed down Malik two life sentences, five 10-year sentences, and three five-year terms, all of which run concurrently.

Malik has been under detention at Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2019 along with several other top pro-freedom leaders and activists, some of whom have also been charged in the same case.

Malik, 57, is the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which advocates independence on both sides of Kashmir. In his youth he had been one of the first Kashmiris to pick up arms against the oppressive Indian rule in Kashmir in the late 1980s. However, as he matured, he abandoned militancy and has remained a non-violent activist for the self determination of the Kashmiri nation.

India banned the group Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in 2019.

Malik was arbitrarily arrested in the aftermath of a suicide bombing in which 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on a highway in Kashmir in 2019.

Kashmir, a Himalayan Muslim majority region, is largely occupied by India since 1947.

Many Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, tens of thousands have been killed by Indian security forces since 1989.