New Delhi: In a major update in the Yasin Malik terror case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has requested the Delhi High Court to conduct an in-camera hearing on its plea for the death sentence.
Yasin Malik is the Kashmiri separatist leader and chief of the banned JKLF, currently serving a life sentence in a terror-funding case.
Appearing via video conference from Tihar Jail, Malik told a bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain that he has been in “mental agony for the last three years” about the potential of receiving the death penalty.
Citing the case’s sensitivity and security concerns, the anti-terror agency sought that the Justice Chaudhary-led Bench prohibit public access and offer a private virtual link.
The Delhi High Court stated that it will consider the NIA’s request for in-camera sessions and scheduled a further hearing for January 28 of next year.
The NIA has appealed the trial court’s 2022 decision to sentence Malik to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code.
The Central Agency appealed the sentence, arguing that a terrorist cannot be condemned to life in prison just because he pleaded guilty and opted not to stand trial.
While seeking to increase the sentence to the death penalty, the NIA stated that if such dreaded terrorists are not sentenced to death due to their guilty plea, the sentencing regime will be completely undermined, and terrorists will have a way out.
The trial court, which rejected the NIA’s appeal for the death penalty, stated that Malik’s actions struck at the “heart of the idea of India” and were intended to forcefully separate Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India.
Malik, who refused to hire a lawyer and opted to argue the case alone, has been appearing virtually since an August 2024 court order prohibiting his actual appearance due to security concerns.
The now-banned JKLF head is also on trial for the 1990 assassination of four IAF troops in Srinagar, where a critical eyewitness, a retired IAF officer, named him as the primary gunman.
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File Photo: IANS
–IANS
