Home Ministry set to sanction prosecution of Yasin Malik, Asiya Andrabi and Masarat Alam under UAPA

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry is set to sanction the prosecution of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik, Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi and All Party Hurriyat Conference general secretary Masarat Alam under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly receiving funds from Pakistan to carry out terrorist activities and stone pelting in 2010 and 2016.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which arrested the three in April, is expected to file a charge sheet in the first week of October after obtaining the sanction, said officials. The charge sheet may also name Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, they said.

The development comes months after the central government rendered Article 370 inoperative and bifurcated the state into two Union territories. The political leadership, including separatist leaders, have either been locked up or are under house arrest at various locations. Second-rung politicians have been kept outside the state. Malik, Andrabi, Alam and Shabir Shah are currently in Tihar jail in Delhi.

Central government approval is mandatory under Section 45 of the UAPA. The NIA’s proposal for sanction will be examined by a two-member authority. Under the UAPA Act, the central government needs to consider the report of the authority before giving its sanction. Sources said the sanction is likely to be cleared by next week, failing which the separatist leaders will be liable for bail.

In its first charge sheet filed last year, the agency named former Hurriyat chief’s son-in-law Altaf Fantosh, Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali, Naeem Khan, Raja Mehrajudin Kalwal, Bashir Ahmed Bhat, alias Peer Saifullah, Aftab Hilali Shah, alias Shahid ul Islam, Farooq Ahmed Dar, alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khandey, alias Ayaz Akbar and Javed Ahmed Bhat, among others.

The supplementary charge sheet against Malik and others will cite diaries pertaining to contacts of hawala operators, traders, ledger books containing accounts of cross-border Line of Control (LoC) trade of various trading companies, details of bank accounts of Jammu and Kashmir, and travel documents of some entities showing their visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The NIA had registered the case in May 2017 against separatist and secessionist leaders. It said the first information report (FIR) was also against the cadres of the Hurriyat Conference, who were acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Dukhtarane Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other terrorist organisations and gangs for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in the Kashmir Valley by way of pelting stones at the security forces, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.