Jailed separatist leader Yasin Malik during his deposition in Delhi High Court on Thursday claimed that after his arrest in 1990, he was actively engaged by six consecutive Governments headed by VP Singh to Manmohan Singh, to speak about the Kashmir cause and resolve the issue. Malik further told the Delhi High Court that he met Pakistan-based terrorist Hafiz Saeed and other militants in 2006 at the request of then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Special Director VK Joshi.
“I was specifically requested for this meeting with Hafiz Saeed and other militant leaders of Pakistan on the pretext that militancy and peace dialogues cannot go in tandem, given the bomb blast which happened in the National Capital,” he said. Malik further claimed that after returning to India from this meeting, he met with PM Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor NK Narayanan and briefed them about it.
“I briefed him [PM Manmohan Singh] on my meetings and appraised him on the possibilities, where he conveyed his gratitude me for my efforts, time, patience and dedication. But as luck would have, it this meeting of mine with Hafiz Saeed and other militant leader of Pakistan which was initiated and executed only on the request of Special Director IB VK Joshi, were portrayed in a different context against me,” he said.
These submissions were made in the detailed written submissions filed by him before the Delhi High Court in response to a plea by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeking the death penalty for him in a terror funding case. In his written submissions, Malik also recounted his engagement with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Government and meetings with the then Intelligence Bureau (IB) Special Director Ajit Doval. He said Doval visited him in jail in the early 2000s and broke the news of his release. “Then Special IB Director Mr. Ajit Kumar Doval met me in New Delhi and arranged a meeting for me with IB Director Mr. Shyamal Dutta and Mr, Brajesh Mishra,
National Security Advisor to the then Prime Minister independently. They both stated that our Prime Minister is serious in the talks process to resolve the Kashmir issue, and that I should support his Ramzan ceasefire,” said Malik. Malik also said that he met Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Communist leaders to bring them on board with then Prime Minister Vajpayee’s peace process in Kashmir. After the Congress came to power in 2004, he was invited by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a formal dialogue in 2006 where Singh told him that he (Singh) wanted to resolve the Kashmir issue. Following this meeting, Malik went to the US and met US State Department officials.
He also denied allegations of genocide and gang rape of Kashmiri pandits, stating that he will hang himself if it were true. “There are un-substantiated claims that the Kashmiri pandit’s exodus happened because of the alleged genocide and gang initiated by me… I shall hang myself without any trial and pronounce my name to go down the annals of history as a blot and curse to the mankind,” he said.
Malik denied his support for stone-pelting post Burhan Wani’s encounter in Kashmir in 2016. Malik claimed he was not a lone actor but was encouraged and deployed by the state itself to keep the “peace track” alive in Kashmir, and recounted a series of high-level meetings and communications, including phone calls with industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, secret meetings with Intelligence Bureau (IB) directors and dinners with home minister and other top officials.
According to Malik, this relationship began in the early 1990s when he was taken from jail to a Delhi bungalow to meet then-home minister Rajesh Pilot and IB officials, claiming they urged him to give up arms under the direct instructions of then-prime minister PV Narasimha Rao.
