By Dr Syed Nazir Gilani
Mohammad Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is today facing two life sentences. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has petitioned to escalate these into a death sentence. This pursuit is not only harsh but unjust, and it risks placing India’s judiciary on the wrong side of history once again.
A Personal Connection
I first met Yasin Malik in Srinagar during my 16-day visit to Kashmir in December 1996–January 1997. He attended a reception I hosted for leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference at the historic Ahdoos Hotel. Later, he invited me to his home, where his mother and sister offered me a warm family farewell, marked by dignity and prayers.
We met several times again—in London at my home, in the House of Commons, at Dr. Siraj Shah’s residence, and at Barrister Tramboo’s house. Over the years, JKCHR submitted five detailed reports on Kashmiri prisoners to the United Nations, consistently advocating for their rights, including Yasin Malik’s. In June 2022, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir in the UK also petitioned for his release.
Yasin Malik’s wife and daughter are admirable people, caught in this tragedy of politics and punishment. His daughter has tried to spearhead a call for his release—an effort that reveals the deeply human dimension of his imprisonment.
From Militancy to Dialogue
I have never endorsed the decision to introduce militancy into Kashmir in the late 1980s. Jammu and Kashmir was not under colonial occupation but under a United Nations framework, where India was charged by Security Council Resolution 47 (21 April 1948) with implementing over two dozen obligations leading to a plebiscite. The responsibility to enforce compliance lay with the Security Council, not with armed groups.
Yet, when militancy did emerge, I defended militants on the basis of six elements identified by Britain at the UN Security Council—recognising the political and human context of their actions. Yasin Malik, however, distinguished himself by eventually renouncing armed struggle and choosing the path of peaceful dialogue. JKLF became a founding member of the Hurriyat Conference, which itself followed a constitutional discipline aligned with the UN framework.
An Ambassador of Peace
Yasin Malik played a pivotal role in efforts to construct peace in Kashmir. At the landmark November 2000 “Give Peace a Chance” Conference in Delhi—jointly sponsored by think tanks from India and Pakistan and attended by international voices—he opened the proceedings. I too addressed a session chaired by Justice Rajinder Sachar, then Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and a UN human rights expert.
At that time, militancy still gripped the Valley. To call for peace, as Malik did, was unfashionable, even dangerous. Yet he dared to advocate ending bloodshed and replacing it with guarantees for life and dignity. He spread out, metaphorically, a carpet for a peaceful walk when few others had the courage to do so.
India’s Misplaced Justice
An ambassador of peace should not be condemned to life imprisonment—let alone face the prospect of a death sentence. The move by NIA is not just punitive but profoundly lacking in fairness and grace.
India’s judiciary has often erred under the pressure of populist sentiment in Kashmir-related cases. It was unkind and historically unjust to Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru, both executed in circumstances that jail authorities themselves later described as “rough justice.” To repeat this cycle with Yasin Malik would stain India’s democratic and judicial credibility irreparably.
If leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh were alive today, their conscience would not allow such an escalation. They understood that Kashmir required bridges, not walls.
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The UN Framework and India’s Own Commitments
Under Paragraph 12 of UN Security Council Resolution 47 (21 April 1948), the Government of India has an obligation that “all subjects of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, regardless of creed, caste or party, will be safe and free in expressing their views and in voting on the question of the accession of the State… with freedom of the press, speech, assembly, and travel, including freedom of lawful entry and exit.”
Escalating Malik’s punishment violates both this explicit undertaking and the broader preventive jurisdiction of the Security Council under which the Kashmir question remains inscribed.
Conclusion
Yasin Malik is not a candidate for the gallows. He is a candidate for reconciliation and peace. His transformation from armed struggle to peaceful advocacy should have been recognised as an asset, not punished as a crime.
To seek his death is to betray the very principle that India’s soldiers were once sent to Kashmir to uphold: the protection of life.
India must step back from this precipice. Justice in Kashmir has too often been delivered at the scaffold. This must not happen again.