The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has informed the Delhi High Court that Yasin Malik leveraged his connections with top Pakistani leaders—including the Prime Minister, President, senators, and all provincial chief ministers—to spread anti-India narratives and advance a secessionist agenda in Jammu and Kashmir, Bar and Bench reported, citing an NIA affidavit.
In the affidavit, the NIA stated that Malik’s claims of proximity to senior Indian politicians, foreign delegates, bureaucrats, and media figures were merely attempts to gain popularity and public sympathy. The agency argued that such name-dropping does not erase Malik’s proven links with militants like Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen’s Syed Salahuddin. The NIA also noted that Malik himself admitted to being the Commander-in-Chief of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
The affidavit was a rejoinder to Malik’s response to the NIA’s plea seeking the death penalty for him on terror-funding charges. Although the trial court had sentenced Malik to life imprisonment, the NIA is pursuing a harsher punishment.
Earlier, Malik had told the High Court that after his 1990 arrest, he was actively engaged by six successive governments—from V.P. Singh to Manmohan Singh—to discuss the Kashmir issue. He claimed to have met Hafiz Saeed and other militants in 2006 at the request of then IB Special Director V.K. Joshi, and recalled interactions with former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government and meetings with then IB Special Director Ajit Doval, who he said visited him in jail and broke the news of his release.
The NIA countered that merely naming government officials does not absolve Malik of the crimes for which he was convicted. The agency added that these matters appeared to be personal communications within Malik’s exclusive knowledge, raised only to elicit public sympathy.
The case was heard by a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja. Malik claimed he had not received the NIA’s rejoinder, prompting the court to adjourn the matter to July for arguments on sentence enhancement. Special Public Prosecutor Akshai Malik appeared for the NIA, while Yasin Malik is representing himself.
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