JKLF chief Yasin Malik denies involvement in Kashmiri Pandit murder case, seeks death penalty

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Jailed chief of banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Mohammad Yasin Malik , an accused in the murder of a Kashmiri Pandit woman, has submitted a detailed 25-page affidavit before a special court here, pleading not guilty but refusing to contest the case and asking for capital punishment.

He claimed that the charges read more like a fabricated story than a legitimate police investigation, arguing that the case was constructed decades later purely to frame him.

In the affidavit, 60-year-old Malik, who is lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail, also announced his decision to dissolve his marriage with his wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick, citing his prolonged incarceration and inability to communicate with his family over the past eight years as he did not have any access to phone calls or video conferencing.

"Before I will be hanged, I have taken the decision to separate you from the bond of our Nikah," Malik wrote to his wife in the same affidavit and advised his daughter to call her grandparents every day for five minutes.

In the affidavit, verified and attested at Central Jail No. 7, Tihar, Malik declared his decision to stop contesting the ongoing trial proceedings, stating that he has put his entire case in the hands of God.

Read more : “My mother too was not allowed to hug me,” Yasin Malik takes up prisoners’ cause

"Considering my personal circumstances and after deep reflection, I have decided not to contest the trial proceedings further. My decision shall not be treated as an admission of any prosecution fact, guilt or acceptance of the allegations made against me. I request for capital punishment," Malik stated in his court submission.

The JKLF chief maintained that he has been falsely implicated due to political considerations.

The affidavit from Malik comes after the State Investigating Agency (SIA) on June 29 filed a charge sheet in connection with the murder of Sarla Bhat, a young Kashmiri Pandit woman, who lost her life on April 19, 1990. He has been named as an accused in the case.

Malik strongly refuted the SIA's allegations, calling them a "subsequent invention" framed after more than three decades and argued that during April 1990, he was critically injured following a fall from a building during a BSF raid at Narwara, remained in a coma, and was twice reported dead by news outlets including the state-run Doordarshan.

"It is incomprehensible how a person who was unconscious, fighting for his own survival and widely believed to be dead could have participated in, directed or orchestrated the commission of the offence," Malik claimed, adding that Sarla Bhat was an innocent civilian and denying that she acted as a security informer.

He said Bhat was neither working for the security forces in any covert capacity nor was she in any manner responsible for the raid conducted at Narwara where he was holed up.

"In my view, She (Bhat) was as innocent civilian as my own 13-year-old daughter Raziya Sultana," Malik said.