Separatist Leader to Govt Interlocutor? Yasin Malik's Claims Raise Old Ghosts

Yasin Malik’s affidavit rebuts NIA terror charges, reveals past govt links, sparking political and security battles.

Separatist leader Yasin Malik's affidavit as sparked a wave of bafflement in Kashmir.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

The controversial affidavit that Yasin Malik, the head of the proscribed militant group Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), has submitted in the Delhi High Court comes with a point-by-point rebuttal of the charges levelled against him by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

But while mounting his defence, 59-year-old Malik seems to have opened a Pandora’s box. He has brought to light an underside of India’s older security doctrines to showcase how past political calculations blurred the lines between ideology and affinity.

At the same time, the picture that Malik has tried to paint of himself is not of the anti-India separatist he is known for being, but that of a political interlocutor whose actions were allegedly determined upon the orders (or requests, depending on who one believes) from the top echelons of the Indian government and its attendant arms, primarily security agencies such as Intelligence Bureau (IB).

This has sparked a wave of bafflement in Kashmir, where people are struggling to reconcile what they had known about the separatist leader so far, with what he has been revealing about himself now. “Right now, it is difficult to believe what is true and what is not,” said Faheem Nisar, a 26-year-old scholar from Srinagar. “Those who have read the reports are gripped by a sense of shock.”

Malik's Claims Vs NIA's Accusations

The 81-page-long affidavit is explosive in nature. The Quint cannot stand for the veracity of the claims made in the document given that their independent confirmation is not possible.

Malik, who has been convicted of being involved in terror activities, is also accused of being behind the killings of four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, in Srinagar in January 1990. The NIA investigation also accuses him of having received funding from terrorists based in Pakistan, and of orchestrating violent protests through the summer of unrest in 2016.

In March 2020, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) court in Jammu framed charges against Malik and four other accused in the killing of four IAF officers. The court observed that there are “sufficient grounds for drawing presumption that the accused Yasin Malik” and others “prima facie have committed the offence.”

In January the following year, the court ordered charges to be pressed against Malik and nine other accused in a second case related to the 1989 abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of veteran Kashmiri leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed who was then the Union Home Minister.

In May 2022, the special NIA Court in Patiala sentenced Malik to two life sentences, along with five punishments of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment each and a fine of Rs 10 lakh.

Political Battles Over Malik's Affidavit

Malik's affidavit has triggered relentless cycles of political battles. On one hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters have highlighted parts of the affidavit that reveal how Malik was feted by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

On the other, Congress spokespersons have hit back, claiming that the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had also accommodated Malik “when the state policy was dialogue and engagement.”

Former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti last week wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to consider a “compassionate reassessment” of the cases against Malik who has “engaged in dialogue involving senior officials, intelligence personnel, and even controversial figures—all with a tacit consent of Indian agencies.”

The 'Track Two' Diplomacy Connect

Malik’s affidavit claims that he was part of two separate (Track Two) initiatives led by Vajpayee. One was handled by Brijesh Mishra, the then National Security Advisor (NSA), and the second by RK Mishra, who was then advisor to business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani.

While Vajpayee had sought to defuse tensions between the two countries because angling for peace was part of his political mantra, Malik claims that Ambani’s interests were grounded in the fact that he was “heavily invested in a refinery on the Gujarat border within a shooting distance of Pakistan”—a project that the continued India-Pakistan rivalry was threatening to jeopardise.

Malik claims that following his arrest as a JKLF militant in August 1990, he was taken to Tihar jail, and then to a guest house in Mehrauli where the who’s who of India’s top brass met him every day “to convince me to have dinner with the then prime minister…Chandrashekhar.”

He also claims that during the premiership of PV Narasimha Rao, “these people” gave him “the specific task to bring me back to the non-violent political arena.” Thus, Malik renounced his participation in militancy and turned to what he refers to as the ‘Gandhian ways’ after which he was released from jail in May 1994.  

He claims he was issued bail in all 32 terrorism-related offences registered against him, none of which were later pursued as part of the alleged 'understanding' he had reached with the government during Rao’s term—a position that his successors upheld until Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to overturn it in March 2019, when JKLF was outlawed following the dastardly Pulwama attack.

However, this claim is at odds with the details mentioned in the NIA Special Court verdict of 2022—and reported by The Quint—which reveal that the cases against him were registered in May 2017 (when J&K was still ruled by the BJP-PDP coalition) following receipt of information that separatist leaders in Kashmir had been raising funds through illicit means to fund “terrorist and separatist activities in J&K”.

Nevertheless, Malik goes on to claim that this “promise (of amnesty) was followed (through) by five prime ministers, including the present prime minister in his first tenure of five years from 2014-2019, but after abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, (the) cases (were) not only reopened but also charges were framed after 31 years.”

He claims that Vajpayee supported his mediatory efforts and that LK Advani, who was the Home Minister during the NDA reign, issued him a passport to travel abroad in 2001.

Helping Government Defuse the 2016 Uprising

Further, Malik reveals how he helped the government bring an end to violent protest cycles of 2016, when the local trade unions in Kashmir urged him to intervene to prevent them from going bankrupt as a long spell of civil unrest had all but crippled the regional economy.

He mentions a meeting at the residence of deceased Hurriyat patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani in 2016 after which it was “decided that a breather of two-three days shall be given (as protest calendars were issued on a weekly basis) for the anger to subside and good senses to prevail amongst youth to avoid further escalation of the issue,” the affidavit reads.

When some protesters objected to the plan, he reached out to them personally and persuaded them to agree to its implementation, Malik claims. This led to the uprising steaming out by the first week of December 2016, which made the return to normalcy possible, he claims.

The terrorism and security experts, however, see Malik’s affidavit as an act of clutching at straws at a time when the heavy hand of the law is closing in on him.

“The evidence that he was involved in the killing of four IAF personnel is irrefutable,” Tara Kartha, director at Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), told The Quint. “There’s no way he is getting around that. He should have been punished by the ruling governments back then itself. It is unfortunate that they dragged their feet over it.”

Supporting an Anti-Terrorist Probe

The affidavit also reveals that when militants had assassinated his colleague and senior cleric Moulana Showkat Ahmad Shah in 2011, he became part of the ‘All Party Religious & Political Committee’ to investigate this issue, which was working in close coordination with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the J&K Police.

As part of probing this incident, Malik “was made” to visit Pakistan, and that the entire travel programme was facilitated by the Indian government.

He alleges that a senior IB official created a false email ID for further correspondence pertaining to the investigation, especially with regards to confirming the identity of the perpetrators.

Malik also alleges that his meeting with terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed in 2006 was underwritten by the then IB special director at a time when the Indian government under Manmohan Singh was actively seeking a peace process on the Kashmir issue.

“When I returned to New Delhi from Pakistan, (the) Special Director, as part of the debriefing exercise, met me in the hotel and requested me to immediately brief the Prime Minister. I met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the same evening where MK Narayanan, National Security Advisor, was also present, (and) briefed him on my meetings and appraised him on the possibilities, where he conveyed his gratitude to me for my efforts, time, patience and dedication,” the affidavit claims.

Yet, security experts opine that such an appeal to emotion by Malik may not yield him any success.

“Malik’s case exemplifies a rapid change of fortunes. He was once felicitated by successive prime ministers and chiefs of spy agencies. When the government during Vajpayee’s time had the mandate to build bridges with the other side, Malik also benefited from it, as is evidenced by the fact that he was never prosecuted in that era when such separatists were regarded as handy intermediaries.”

Vikram Jit Singh, a veteran journalist who has reported on militancy in Kashmir.

Ajai Sahni, executive director at the Centre of Conflict Management, New Delhi, said Malik’s evasion of law has something to do with political expediency and is not rooted in the legal precedents. “At no point was a formal agreement arrived at with Yasin Malik that these cases will not be pursued,” Sahni, a seasoned terrorism expert, told The Quint.

“Heinous crimes are never withdrawn. There’s a proper definition to it. A crime where the prescribed punishment is more than seven years is a heinous crime.” Sahni said that if Malik got to benefit from the political generosity of certain governments in the past, now another government has chosen to punish him for his crimes. “It was an act of political accommodation by certain regimes. Not by the State,” he said.

“While the regime may play with laws, the State is run by the laws.”

(Shakir Mir is an independent journalist whose work delves into the intersection of conflict, politics, history and memory in J&K. He tweets at @shakirmir. This is an opinion piece. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)