News Mania Delhi Bureau
National Investigation Agency (NIA) has challenged life sentence awarded to JKLF leader Yasin Malik in Delhi High Court and demanded death penalty for him, arguing that pleading guilty can not be ground for a lenient sentence.
If that starts happening, the hardened terrorists will have no hesitation in admitting their crime and will get away with just life sentence instead of death for terror, the NIA argued before the Division Bench presided by Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh.
The Bench issued notice to Yasin Malik and directed that he be produced before the court on 9 August 2023.
Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik was on 24 May 2023 sentenced to life imprisonment in a terror funding case by a NIA court Special Judge Parveen Singh.
The agency said that if such dreaded terrorists are not given capital punishment just on the ground that they have admitted their crime, then it will undermine the very sentencing policy of the country and will make mockery of the justice system.
It would also do a grave injustice the families of the victims and security forces who either died or were severely injured during terror attacks planned and executed at Malik’s instance.
NIA contended trial court’s observation that Malik’s case did not fall within the category of “rarest of rare” was legally flawed and completely unsustainable.
Appearing on behalf of NIA, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta argued if pleading guilty would become a norm for awarding lenient sentence then Al Qaeda supremo Osama Bin Laden would also get away with life sentence after admitting he murdered all those victims. The Bench brushed aside Osama analogy saying he never faced trial and it was not proper for this court bring in foreign matters.
The NIA pointed to two cases which were part of Malik’s secessionist and terror-spreading activities in Kashmir Valley – kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed and killing of Indian Air Force (IAF) servicemen in Kashmir.
Rubaiya Sayeed , the daughter of the then Indian Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was kidnapped by JKLF on 8 December 1989 and was released only after the then V P Singh Government released five terrorists who later returned only to launch 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack.
In second case, four unarmed IAF servicemen were shot dead while they were waiting for their bus at a stop in Kashmir on January 1990, shortly after Rubaiya was released in exchange of five terrorists. The car-borne assailants allegedly included Malik.
Solicitor General Mehta told court these two incidents show Malik was a remorseless and hardened terrorist who ruthlessly indulged in bloodshed despite all leniencies extended to him.
