NIA court convicts Kashmiri separatist Yasin Malik

Yasin Malik, a separatist leader from Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday was convicted by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court. He had pleaded guilty in the terror funding case on the last date of the hearing. The NIA has been asked to give an affidavit on the socio-economic status of convict Yasin Malik after taking the help of local authorities. Malik is also directed to file an affidavit disclosing all sources of his income and assets (movable and immovable). Special NIA Judge Praveen Singh on Thursday posted the matter for arguments on the quantum of sentence for 25 May.

Malik had told the court that he was not contesting the charges levelled against him that included Sections 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy to commit terrorist act) and 20 (being member of terrorist gang or organisation) of the UAPA and Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 124-A (sedition) of the IPC. Recently, the court had ordered the framing of charges against several separatist leaders including Yasin Malik under UAPA and IPC.

Meanwhile, the court formally framed the charges against other Kashmiri separatist leaders who are accused in the case. Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Ka

rate, 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 on Tuesday formally signed the court order copy and said they are ready to face trial in the case.

The NIA Judge, while passing the order said, “The analysis reflects that the statements of witnesses and documentary evidence have connected almost all the accused with each other and to a common object of secession, to the commonality of means they were to use, their close association to terrorist/ terrorist organizations under the guiding hand and funding of Pakistani establishment.”

On 16 March, the NIA Court had ordered the framing of charges against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, among others.