India’s top court suggests trial in jail for Kashmiri leader

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir

India’s Supreme Court on Thursday suggested that it might set up a courtroom inside a jail in New Delhi to hear the case of Kashmiri pro-independence leader Yasin Malik, while citing the fair trial of a Pakistani militant sentenced to death in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The court was hearing a plea from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging an order that had directed Malik’s physical presence in a court in Jammu province for a trial related to the 1989 abduction of the daughter of former Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.

Malik, also one of the accused in the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel in 1989, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in May 2022 on charges of “conspiracy, waging war against the state, terror funding, etc.” The NIA had sought the death sentence for him.

Malik, whose organization gave up arms in 1994 and has participated in several rounds of talks on Kashmir with Indian leaders, including a former prime minister, has refused to hire a lawyer and insisted on personally appearing before the court.

“How will cross-examination be done online? There is hardly any connectivity in Jammu … In our country, a fair trial was given even to Ajmal Kasab, and legal assistance was provided to him in the high court,” remarked a bench of two Supreme Court judges.

The bench also instructed India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, to take instructions on the number of witnesses in the abduction case. One of the judges suggested the possibility of holding the trial in jail. The judge added that all the accused in the case must be heard before passing any orders.

Ajmal Kasab, who was convicted of 80 offenses in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed by hanging on Nov. 21, 2012, and buried within the confines of a jail in Pune, Maharashtra.