Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik has told the Delhi high court that he was instructed to meet Lashkar-e-Tayyaba founder Hafiz Saeed in 2006 by a senior Intelligence Bureau (IB) official.

In an affidavit, Malik told the court that his meeting with Saeed was part of a broader effort to get leaders of militant outfits on board for the peace process on Kashmir initiated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the early 2000s and continued by his successor Manmohan Singh.

The affidavit has alleged that special director of IB V.K. Joshi met Malik in Delhi ahead of his visit to Pakistan. Malik was planning to rally support for relief efforts in the aftermath of the devastating 2005 earthquake that killed at least 73,000 people in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir and J&K.

“I was specifically requested for this meeting with Hafiz Saeed and other militant leaders of Pakistan on the pretext that militancy and peace dialogues cannot go in tandem, given the [2006] bomb blast which happened in the national capital,” Malik said in the affidavit dated August 28. 

A bomb exploded in the premises of the Jama Masjid in Delhi on April 14, 2006 at around 5:25 pm, followed by another blast in the mosque’s vicinity. There were no casualties in the twin blasts that took place when the ruling United Progressive Alliance led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was actively pursuing the Kashmir peace process with Islamabad.

When Malik returned from Pakistan, he was debriefed by Joshi at a hotel in Delhi. Later, the JKLF chief briefed Prime Minister Singh in the presence of M.K. Narayanan, then national security advisor, about his meetings in Pakistan, the affidavit alleges. 

“I appraised him (Singh) on the possibilities, where he conveyed his gratitude to me for my efforts, time, patience and dedication. But … this meeting …  (was) portrayed in a different context against me. It was nothing but a case of classic betrayal, where despite working to strengthen peace … (I was) brand(ed) as a terrorist (by the BJP) to .. pursue their own political agenda in the state”.

Malik told the court that he worked with seven consecutive prime ministers after his arrest in 1990, naming V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, H.D. Devegowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. 

The JKLF chief has also named the incumbent national security advisor Ajit Doval in his affidavit, among other intelligence officers, with whom he claims to have worked in the past. He also claimed to have had a classified conversation with former Union home minister P. Chidambaram in 2009 after which a parliamentary delegation met him at his residence in Srinagar.

“Not only I was provided domestic platform to speak about the Kashmiri cause, but I was actively roped in time and again by the said governments in power and was actively persuaded to speak on international platforms,” Malik said, referring to the Vajpayee government’s decision to grant him a passport in 2001.

“I have travelled openly with due and valid visas issued by the United States of America, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan, speaking on the non-violent democratic peaceful struggle and the resolution of Kashmir issues through dialogue. I have never been found in violation of visa norms or have never absconded or led away,” the affidavit states. 

Details from the 81-page affidavit

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has blamed Malik for working with Pakistan’s military leadership and being in direct contact with former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The agency has cited a letter written to the JKLF chief by Sharif in 2016 after the former objected to the merger of the strategically important provinces of Gilgit and Baltistan with Pakistan.

The 81-page affidavit states that the then foreign minister and senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj expressed the “same concern” about Gilgit and Baltistan in a press conference a day after media reported about his letter. 

“If I am a terrorist … inciting violence and militancy in Kashmir on the behest of Pakistan, and exchanging letters with their premier, clandestinely, why would the sitting minister … show [the] same concern,” the affidavit states. 

On the charges of supporting the secession of Kashmir from India, the affidavit recalls the JKLF leader’s journey as a young political activist in 1986, when he was first arrested on charges of pasting ‘independent Kashmir’ posters in Srinagar, saying that he believed in the resolution of Kashmir issue “as per the wishes of the people”.

Malik told the court that he formed the Islamic Students League, a student organisation, which worked with the Muslim United Front (MUF) in the controversial 1987 assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir that is widely believed to have lit up the spark for armed insurgency. 

According to Malik, the MUF was planning to bring a resolution in the assembly demanding that India and Pakistan should resolve the Kashmir issue “as per the wishes of the people”. 

The affidavit states that the rigging of the election and Malik’s incarceration for most of 1987 convinced him that democratic means were not going to resolve the Kashmir issue following which he went to Pakistan for arms training. 

The affidavit extensively quotes the teachings of Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o among others.

“The state is like a parent for the child. It must have compassion and benevolence in response to the anger and frustration. Lack of awareness and consciousness of the state has pushed many simple young students like Yasin towards armed struggle. In the country of Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, the state acted in the most irrational manner,” the affidavit states. 

After his return from Pakistan, Malik was arrested in 1990 and shifted to a sub jail in Delhi's Mehrauli, where the country’s political leadership, civil society, journalists and intelligence agencies are alleged to have convinced him to give up arms by promising that the Kashmir issue will be resolved through meaningful dialogue.

“The American Government and the British Government diplomats stationed in their respective embassies in New Delhi also came up with a similar proposal to me. I accepted the same and decided to re-commence a non-violent democratic peaceful struggle,” the affidavit states.

After being released from jail in May 1994. Malik told the court that he was bailed in all 32 militancy cases in a “single bail order” and the cases were not pursued by successive governments under five prime ministers. 

These cases include the kidnapping of former Union home minister Mufti Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Sayeed and the killing of four IAF personnel in Srinagar in 1990, which have been recently reopened by the investigation agencies after gathering dust for years. 

“None of these cases against me were pursued, thereafter, in terms of understanding under the ceasefire agreement, during the dispensations of Shri P.V. Narsimha Rao. The promise was kept by every single dispensation of the Indian government, including by PM Shri Narendra Modi in his first phase till 2019,” the affidavit states. 

The JKLF chief has cited the case of Abu Salem in which the Supreme Court ordered the Union government to honour the promise made to the Portugal government that the gangster won't be sentenced to death or imprisoned for more than 25 years after his extradition in 2005.

Malik has termed the change of policy by the Union government after 2019 as “complete breach of faith” which goes “against the spirit, essence and the very genesis of the ceasefire agreement”. 

“There is a strong element of irrevocable trust and faith which is followed virtuously even between individuals/parties with differing views, enemies and foes when something is agreed with in principle and is followed with perpetuity without a shred and ounce of ambiguity”. 

The affidavit states that the JKLF chief came in contact with the Union government in 2000 through Brijesh Mishra, then national security advisor in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, and R.K. Mishra, editor of The Patriot and a confidante of Vajpayee as well as Reliance Industries founder Dhirubhai Ambani.

Malik claims to have spoken with Ambani over the phone at Mishra's Vasant Vihar residence.

“Apart from exchanging pleasantries over the call, we discussed our respective humble backgrounds where Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani emphasised about his humble and nimble beginnings in life, and iterated that when complimented with sheer hard work, often results in rewarding results,” the affidavit states.

Charges rejected by Malik

Malik has also rejected the charges of involvement in the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, blaming the then Governor of J&K Jagmohan and his policies for the fate of the minority Hindu population living in the valley that was forced to migrate to other parts of the country after insurgency broke out. 

The affidavit also recalls his alleged meetings with some leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological fountainhead, and two Shankaracharyas of different maths. 

The JKLF chief has denied the NIA’s charges of being involved in the formation of the Hurriyat Conference in 1993, saying that he was in jail when the separatist groups in Kashmir came together under the umbrella organisation, which has been engaged by successive governments in Delhi on the Kashmir issue.  

Some specific charges that have been rejected by Malik in his affidavit include the killing of four air force personnel on January 25, 1990 in Srinagar, colluding with a Pakistani handler and threatening J&K football association office bearers, showing solidarity with the United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin and receiving hawala money from Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, who has also been arrested by the agency on terrorism charges. 

The JKLF chief recounts the start of his present ordeal from a phone call on February 22, 2019 from a police officer in Srinagar who invited him for a cup of coffee, after which he was detained under the Public Safety Act and kept at the Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu.

Later, he was flown to Delhi and summoned as a prosecution witness in a 2017 terror funding case in which the chargesheet and supplementary were filled already without any reference to him and he was “forced to confess” about his involvement in the case while being denied access to lawyers. 

Malik states that he was listed as an accused in a stone pelting case after the NIA claimed that his name was linked to a wire transfer of Rs 15 lakh described in a ledger allegedly recovered from Watali.

The ledger is believed to have prompted the NIA to investigate Malik’s role in terror funding and unrest in Kashmir. However, Malik has been acquitted of terror funding charges by the court. The agency has sought the death penalty for the JKLF chief. 

The affidavit adds: “I should ideally be seen as an apostle of peace and harmony, on the contrary, …. (I have been) brand(ed) as a terrorist”.

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