Mushaal Hussein Mullick, wife of incarcerated chief of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on Wednesday asked Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to initiate a debate in Parliament for her husband, who she claimed can bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir.
Mullick, the former assistant to the prime minister on human rights and women empowerment, wrote a letter to Gandhi drawing attention towards Malik's trial in a "three-decades-old sedition case in which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has demanded a death sentence for him." The Kashmiri separatist leader is himself arguing in the Delhi High Court the appeal moved by the NIA seeking death penalty for him in a terror funding case. The NIA filed charges in the 2017 terror funding case against several individuals, including Malik, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022 by a trial court after pleading guilty to the charges against him.
“Since November 2, Malik has gone on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the inhumane treatment in jail. This hunger strike will further adversely affect his wellbeing and put at risk the life of a man, who after renouncing armed struggle, chose to believe in the concept of non-violence,” she said.
She also quoted different authors about how they described Malik's change of heart and said: “Rahul Ji, I recall these anecdotes not to glorify Malik but to recall them to apprise you that he stood by his end of the bargain.” She also alleged that since 2019, Malik is being victimised by BJP government “in all unimaginable ways.” “He is being tried for waging a war against India in a 35-year-old case and now capital sentence is being demanded for him in concocted cases filed against him by NIA.
“I request you (Rahul) to bring to use your high moral and political influence in the Parliament and to initiate a debate in the case of Yasin Malik, who could become an instrument for bringing organic and not cosmetic peace back to the Jammu & Kashmir -- paradise on earth,” she further pleaded.
Ahead of the assembly elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir last month, the Congress and the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) alliance promised autonomy for J&K. The BJP-led government in August 2019 abrogated Article 370 and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.
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