The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has approached the Delhi High Court Seeking Death sentence for Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chief and Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik.

The petition is listed for hearing on May 29 before a Division Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh, reported Bar and Bench.

Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special NIA Court in a terror funding case in May 2022. He had pleaded guilty in the case.

The NIA had demanded capital punishment for Malik before the trial court as well.

However, the prayer was refused by the special court stating that death penalty should be awarded only in exceptional cases “where the crime by its nature shocks the collective consciousness of the society”.

Malik was convicted of offences under Section 120B, 121, 121A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 13 and 15 of UAPA read with 120B of the IPC besides Sections 17, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of UAPA.

In a detailed judgement, the NIA Court had observed that Malik betrayed the good intentions of the government by choosing the violent path.

“Betraying the good intentions of government he took a different path to orchestrate violence in the guise of political struggle. …the evidence on the basis of which charges were framed and to which convict has pleaded guilty, speaks otherwise,” the special court had underscored.

The judge had also rejected Malik’s argument that he had become a Gandhian after 1994.

“It only took one small incident of violence at Chauri Chaura for the Mahatma to call off the entire non cooperation movement but the convict despite large scale of violence engulfing the valley neither condemned the violence nor withdrew his calendar of protests, which had led to the said violence,” the judge underlined