New Delhi, September 2: Jailed Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik has denied allegations that he was involved in the abduction and killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat in 1990, calling the charges against him a case of “false implication”.
Malik, who is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, made the submissions after the State Investigation Agency (SIA) filed a chargesheet in June naming him as a key accused in the case relating to Bhat’s killing in April 1990.
During questioning by the SIA, Malik was asked about allegations that the JKLF had suspected Bhat of passing information to security forces and that he had ordered her killing following a security forces raid at Narwara in Downtown Srinagar on April 8, 1990.
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“I categorically stated that the allegation is entirely false,” Malik said, according to his response.
“Neither Ms Sarla Bhat was working for the security forces in any covert capacity, nor was she in any manner responsible for the raid conducted at Narwara,” he said.
Malik also questioned the basis for the prosecution’s case, particularly an alleged handwritten JKLF note said to have been recovered from the crime scene.
He claimed that three officers visited him at Tihar Jail in New Delhi before the chargesheet was filed and referred to “an alleged handwritten JKLF note recovered from the crime scene that purportedly claimed responsibility for the murder and mentioned the names of Javaid Mir, Sheikh Abdul Hamid and Mohammad Yasin Malik”.
Malik questioned why the names mentioned in the alleged note did not figure in the original investigation.
“Why investigators had not named him or the others mentioned in the alleged note when the case was originally probed,” he asked.
“On what legal or factual basis has this theory suddenly emerged after several decades?” Malik said, arguing that if such a note had existed, it would have come to the attention of investigators during the original investigation.
He further claimed that he first learnt about Bhat’s murder on February 21, 1991, while he was in judicial custody.
According to Malik, after Chandra Shekhar became Prime Minister, he was shifted from Tihar Jail to a farmhouse in Mehrauli, New Delhi, where he was visited by senior officials.
He claimed that a senior Intelligence Bureau officer, whom he identified by the code name “Dr Mathur”, told him that security agencies suspected Khursheed Chalkoo, who Malik said was believed to be in Pakistan, of involvement in Bhat’s murder.
Malik also rejected what he described as a newly advanced theory linking him to Bhat’s killing.
“The present theory has been advanced solely to implicate me in a case in which my name did not figure for more than 36 years,” he said.
The SIA filed its chargesheet in June in the long-pending case concerning the abduction and killing of Bhat, a nurse who was abducted from her residence in Srinagar in April 1990 and later found dead.
Malik, who is serving a life sentence in a militancy-funding case, is currently lodged in Tihar Jail.
In his response to the allegations, Malik maintained that his submissions should not be treated as an admission of any prosecution claim.
“The present proceedings have arisen out of political circumstances and decisions. I believe that I have been falsely implicated in the present case,” he said.
He added: “My decision shall not be treated as an admission of any prosecution fact, guilt or acceptance of the allegations made against me.”
