Yasin Malik to be tried for 1990 killing of 4 IAF men, kidnapping Rubaiya

Jammu: The decks are cleared for the trial of jailed separatist leader Yasin Malik in a special TADA court here from next week in the two nearly 30-year-old cases involving the killing of four IAF personnel and kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, sources said.

A bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on April 26 had struck down a 2008 single-bench High Court court order transferring the hearing in the two cases to Srinagar. Sources said the Jammu TADA court recetly issued non-bailable warrants against Malik and asked the police to produce him before the court on September 11.

In its 27-page judgement in April this year, Justice Sanjay Kumar Gupta vacated an order by a single bench of the high court which had stayed trial against Malik in 1995, besides observing that the October 25, 2008 order of special TADA court of Jammu allowing Malik's petition for shifting trial to Srinagar was not correct.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Malik is currently lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail after being arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a case related to financing of terror and separatist organisations.

The two cases relate to the killing of four Indian Air Force officers on January 25, 1990 on the outskirts of Srinagar city and the kidnapping of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's daughter in 1989. Two chargesheets were filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in August and September 1990 against Malik before the designated TADA court in Jammu.

Malik was granted stay on trial by a single bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in 1995 as there was no TADA court in Srinagar.

In 2008, Malik approached the special court saying the trial could be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing a lot of security problems in view of the Amarnath Yatra row -- an agitation which had divided people of Kashmir and Jammu on religious lines over the issue of leasing land to outsiders during the annual pilgrimage.

The first case relates to an incident that occurred on January 25, 1990 at Rawalpora, Srinagar. The Air Force employees were fired upon by terrorists in which 40 of them, including a woman, received serious injuries and four IAF personnel were killed.

On completion of investigation, a chargesheet was filed on August 31, 1990 against Malik and five others before the designated TADA Court in Jammu.

The second case relates to the kidnapping of Dr Rubaiya Sayeed who was abducted by some gun-wielding terrorists travelling in the same mini bus in which she was going to her house at Nowgam. She was taken to some unknown place, where her captors threatened to kill her in case their demands were not met.

The Yasin Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was banned by the central government last March for "promoting" secession of the militancy-hit state from the Union of India.