Special Judge of India’s notorious National Investigation Agency (NIA), Praveen Singh, officially convicted Yasin Malik on May 19 in manifestly dubious and motivated cases registered against him over three decades ago and fixed hearing today for announcing the quantum of the sentence, the Kashmir Media Service said.
He was presented before the court amid tight security. Hundreds of Indian policemen and paramilitary troops kept him under their siege when he was brought from Tihar Jail to the court. The Indian Supreme Court had already pronounced that life imprisonment means that the detained person will be kept in jail till he is alive.
The NIA court had also formally framed the charges against APHC leaders including Masarrat Aalam Butt, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Syed Salahuddin, Advocate Shahid-ul-Islam, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Ayaz Muhammad Akbar, Raja Merajuddin Kalwal, Peer Saifullah, and businessman, Zahoor Ahmad Watali.
The JKLF Chairman, who has been languishing in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail for the last over four years, had told the court earlier that he was not contesting the charges levelled against him under various sections of draconian law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and Indian Penal Code including waging war against India as he did not have trust in the Indian judiciary.
| PM says ‘today is a black day for Indian democracy, its justice system’
| Malik’s imprisonment can’t dampen Kashmiri spirit for freedom, says DG ISPR
Mushaal vows to approach ICJ against Yasin Malik’s case
Yasin Malik was arrested by Indian police from his residence in Srinagar in February 2019 and was later shifted to New Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Narendra Modi-led fascist Indian government arrested thousands of Kashmiris including Hurriyat leaders and activists and lodged them in different jails of occupied Kashmir and India. The Modi regime is victimizing them for opposing India’s illegal occupation of their homeland and demanding their UN recognized right to self-determination.
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has said that Modi regime is using judiciary to victimise the illegally detained Muhammad Yasin Malik and other Hurriyat leaders in gross violation of UN resolutions and the international law for seeking liberation of Jammu and Kashmir from Indian illegal occupation. The APHC spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar maintained India cannot force the Kashmiri leaders to surrender their just cause by using its kangaroo courts. He urged the world community, particularly the UN, to play a role in the release of Kashmiri political detainees to save them from India’s wrath.
Life imprisonment for Yasin Malik to provide fresh impetus to Kashmiris’ freedom struggle: PM
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said that life imprisonment for valiant freedom fighter Yasin Malik will provide fresh impetus to Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
“Today is a black day for Indian democracy & its justice system. India can imprison Yasin Malik physically but it can never imprison idea of freedom he symbolizes,” the Prime Minister remarked in a tweet posted on his social media account.
Yasin Malik’s imprisonment can’t dampen Kashmiri spirit for freedom: DG ISPR
Also, Director General Inter Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar on Wednesday said Pakistan strongly condemned life sentence awarded to Yasin Malik on fabricated charges.
The ISPR DG in a tweet said that such oppressive tactics could not dampen the spirit of people of Kashmir in their just struggle against illegal Indian occupation. He wrote, “We stand with them in quest for self-determination as per UNSCRs (United Nations Security Council Resolutions)”.
Wife of jailed Kashmiri Hurriyat Leader Yasin Malik, Mushaal Hussein Mullick on yesterday rejected the biased and ruthless decision of life imprisonment to Yasin Malik in false and politically motivated cases, and vowed that the verdict would be contested at International Court Of Justice (ICJ) as Pakistan summoned Indian Charge d’ Affairs to lodge protest.
Mushaal, who is also chairperson of the Peace and Culture Organisation, said that it was not a decision but ‘a murder of justice’, which is intolerable and unacceptable.
Earlier, an Indian court sentenced the illegally detained Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik to life imprisonment in concocted cases to punish him for his leading role in the ongoing movement for Kashmir’s freedom from Indian illegal occupation.
Two life imprisonments have been awarded to Yasin Malik, besides 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in 10 offences and a penalty of Rs 1 million. All the punishments will run concurrently.
The JKLF chairman, who has been languishing in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail for the last over four years, had told the court that he was not contesting the charges levelled against him under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and other draconian laws, as he did not have trust in the impartiality of the Indian judiciary.
Yasin Malik was arrested by the Indian authorities from his residence in Srinagar in February 2019 and was later shifted to New Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
Mushaal Hussein Mullick vowed that the one-sided and prejudice decision was unacceptable to Kashmiri people, and they would contest it at all fora across the globe and would not sit idle until justice has been done.
“We will neither give in nor give up, as the whole Kashmiri and Pakistani nation is behind him. I appeal to the Kashmiri people to continue with their just struggle for right of self-determination, and should keep raising voice in favour of Yasin Malik,” she added. She thanked all those who were supporting Yasin Malik in this trying time.
Mushaal said the iconic leader would never surrender and he would fight against the fascist Narendra Modi government till last drop of his blood.
She termed the verdict against her husband as ‘judicial murder’ and said if the cruel Indian authorities did not reverse the decision, the war flames would engulf the whole of India as well the region.
She lashed out at the fascist Indian authorities and said that the occupation authorities were influencing the judiciary to give biased decisions to silence the most powerful and peaceful voice of Kashmir freedom struggle.
Mushaal expressed her apprehensions that Yasin Malik’s life was at risk under the brutal and fascist Hindutva regime, as over dozens of senior Kashmiri leaders were tortured to death or sentenced to death to dampen the courage of brave Kashmiri people.
She appealed the international community, UN bodies and human right organisations to shun the duplicity and play their due role in getting justice for Yasin Malik from the Indian courts, which are hell-bent to punish him wrongly for his sole crime to seek independence for people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Meanwhile, the Indian Charge d’Affaires (Cd’A) in Islamabad was called to the Foreign Office (FO) today and conveyed Pakistan’s strongest condemnation and rejection of the malafide conviction and sentencing of Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik in a grossly suspicious and contrived case in 2017 by the National Investigation Agency of India.
The Indian Cd’A was conveyed government of Pakistan’s strong indignation over the highly reprehensible sentencing of Yasin Malik after his conviction on fabricated charges. The FO strongly criticised the denial of fair trial to Yasin Malik and inhuman incarceration despite his deteriorating health, in complete defiance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
It was highlighted that by implicating him in a concocted case and carrying out a bogus and one-sided trial, India has again misused the judiciary in the outrageous execution of political vendetta against the Kashmiri leadership. The abhorrent Indian attempts, seeking to defile the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiris for their right to self-determination as ‘terrorism’ only substantiate India’s deeply etched credentials as a ‘serial violator’ of human rights and usurper of the fundamental freedoms of the Kashmiris.
Recalling the martyrdom of Hurriyat leader Ashraf Sehrai, last year in brutal Indian custody after his victimisation and arrest under the draconian Public Safety Act, the Indian Cd’A was conveyed Pakistan’s grave apprehensions regarding Yasin Malik’s well-being, especially given the ruthless treatment meted out to him in the Indian jail.
The official was further asked to advise his government to acquit Yasin Malik from all baseless charges, ensure his well-being and arrange for his immediate release from the prison.
Moreover, it was also demanded that the government of India must release all Kashmiri leaders incarcerated on trumped-up charges, halt forthwith the gross and systematic persecution of Kashmiris in the IIOJK. Indian government was asked to cease the use of state-terrorism as a policy tool, and let the people of IIOJK determine their own future through a free and impartial plebiscite under the United Nations auspices as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The international community, cognisant of the worst human rights violations and the atrocities being perpetrated by India in the IIOJK, must take immediate stock of the aggravating situation in the IIOJK and press India to fulfil its obligations under the international humanitarian law and the Charter of the United Nations, it said.