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Journalism of Courage
In an affidavit submitted to the Delhi High Court, jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik is learnt to have said that he was encouraged by the state to keep the peace track alive in J&K, claiming that he was actively engaged by seven Prime Ministers in the past and held talks with the RSS leadership and two Shankaracharyas.
Malik, who is in Tihar Jail since 2019, submitted the affidavit, in a sealed cover, after the NIA pleaded to enhance his life imprisonment to death penalty in a 2016 terror funding case. Malik is learnt to have accused the state of attempting to erase the history of engagement, and claimed meetings with PMs, political leaders, intel operatives, RSS leaders and journalists.
He is learnt to have said after his arrest in 1990, he was actively engaged by six consecutive dispensations under the leadership of then PMs V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P V Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Manmohan Singh. Besides providing a domestic platform to speak about the Kashmiri cause, he was actively roped in by the governments in power and persuaded to speak on international platforms, he is learnt to have said.
He also claimed that his relationship with the state began in the early 1990s, when he was taken from jail to a Delhi bungalow to meet a Union minister and Intelligence Bureau officials, who, reportedly under instructions from then PM P V Narasimha Rao, urged him to give up arms.
He said that he was released from jail in 1994 after declaring that he would pursue non-violent democratic struggle, and was provided bail in all the 32 militancy-related TADA cases as part of a single bail order. The promise to not pursue the cases was kept by every dispensation of the government, including PM Narendra Modi in his first term, till the 2019 abrogation of Article 370. He said that then PM Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani issued a passport to him in 2001, and he travelled with valid visas to the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan, speaking on the resolution of Kashmir issues. He said that he engaged in a marathon five-hour meeting with the RSS leadership at IIC in 2011, facilitated by a think-tank, and that two Shankaracharyas from maths had visited him separately at his Srinagar home several times.
It is learnt that Malik has also claimed to have played a key role in urging the Opposition to support the 2000 Ramzan ceasefire declared by Vajpayee, saying he met Manmohan Singh, Najma Heptulla, Sonia Gandhi, V P Singh, I K Gujral, A B Bardhan and Prakash Karat in this connection. Denying his role in terror funding, Malik is learnt to have said that the NIA could not produce evidence in this regard, and he was being made a scapegoat.
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