Terrorist Yasin Malik, who pleaded guilty and was convicted by the special NIA court in Delhi, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Reporting on the development, Republic World says:
Days after convicting Yasin Malik in a terror funding case, the Special NIA court sentenced the Kashmiri separatist and chief of the banned Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) to Life Imprisonment with a Fine & Rigorous Imprisonment on Wednesday. The sentencing by special judge Praveen Singh came after Malik stated that he is ‘not going to beg’ for anything, and left the quantum of sentence to the discretion of the court.
In view of the sentencing, a spontaneous shutdown in parts of Srinagar is in place. Most of the shops and business establishments in Maisuma and adjoining areas, including some shops in Lal Chowk, are shut. Security forces have also been deployed in the city to avoid any law and order problems.
The conviction and the subsequent sentencing came in a case registered by the NIA in 2017. The central agency highlighted that Malik had formed the Joint Resistance Leadership along with Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq in 2016 to support the cause of J&K’s secession from India. It alleged that the secessionists were mobilizing from all possible sources including the Hawala network to fuel unrest and support the terrorist activities in J&K. Maintaining that Malik had played a key role in orchestrating protests, it cited his Facebook chat to show that stone-pelting incidents were a part of a well-planned conspiracy.
Yasin Malik has been charged with hatching a criminal conspiracy, waging war against the country, other unlawful activities, and disturbing peace in Kashmir. He had pleaded guilty in the matter. On the last date of the hearing, he told the court that he was not contesting the charges leveled against him, including sections 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for the terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy to commit terrorist act), and 20 (being member of a terrorist gang or organization) of the UAPA and sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 124-A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code.
