Separatist Yasin Malik was today sentenced to life in prison by a special Delhi court. The National
Investigation Agency (NIA) had demanded the maximum punishment, the death penalty, while the defence pleaded for life imprisonment.
Malik had earlier pleaded guilty to all the charges including those under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in a terror funding case. A special NIA court in Delhi pronounced its verdict on the quantum of punishment in the case.
Earlier, NIA sought the death penalty and told Special Judge Praveen Singh in an in-chamber proceedings that Malik was responsible for the Kashmiri exodus.
On the point of sentence, sources said that Malik submitted that he would not beg for mercy, and that court could decide at its discretion.
The amicus curiae appointed by the court to assist Malik, sought minimum punishment, i.e., life imprisonment in the matter.
The judge, however, said that since he has already been convicted, there was no point in arguing on the facts of the case and that he was already given the opportunity.
The court had on May 19 convicted Malik and had directed the NIA authorities to assess his financial situation to determine the amount of fine likely to be imposed.
Malik had on May 10 told the court that he was not contesting the charges levelled against him that included sections 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for the terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy to commit terrorist act), and 20 (being member of terrorist gang or organisation) of the UAPA and sections 120- B (criminal conspiracy) and 124-A (sedition) of the IPC.
The court had, meanwhile, formally framed the charges against Kashmiri separatist leaders including Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate, Shabbir Shah, Masarat Alam, Md Yusuf Shah, Aftab Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Nayeem Khan, Md Akbar Khanday, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Bashir
Ahmad Bhat, Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Abdul Rashid Sheikh, and Naval Kishore Kapoor.
The charge sheet was also filed against Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, who have been declared proclaimed offenders (PO) in the case.