Eyewitness identifies Yasin Malik as main shooter in 1990 attack on IAF men
SRINAGAR: A former Indian Air Force (IAF) staffer Rajwar Umeshwar Singh who is a “crucial witness” to the 1990 killing of four of his colleagues including a squadron leader and injuring eight others by separatist militants in Srinagar on Thursday identified Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Muhammad Yasin Malik as the main shooter in a special CBI court in Jammu.
IAF staffer Rajwar Umeshwar Singh, a witness for the prosecution, identified Malik who was produced before the court through video conferencing from Delhi’s Tihar Jail, as being one of the persons involved in the shooting incident, Monika Kohli, senior additional advocate general and CBI counsel said. She asserted, “The prosecution witness has identified Yasin Malik as the man behind the shooting. This is an important development in the case.”
A special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act-TADA-court in Jammu had in March 2020 framed charges against Malik and six others in the case. The charges included murder, attempt to murder, hatching conspiracy for it and possessing arms illegally.
As per the chargesheet, Malik and three other JKLF cadres had fired their AK 47 rifles indiscriminately to target IAF personnel who were waiting for buses in Srinagar’s Barzulla-Rawalpora area to report to their duty on the morning of January 25, 1990.
In the sneak attack, IAF personnel M.L. Nathian, U. S. Rajwar, S.C. Gupta, V.K. Sharma, A. Ahmed, V.U. Shekhar, B.S Dhoni, B.R. Sharma, R.K. Khanna, R.C Joshi, P.K Mishra and Sheela Shrivastava were injured. Later four of them -Ahmed, Shekhar, Dhoni and Khanna succumbed to their injuries.
The others against whom Presiding Officer of the TADA Court, Subash Gupta, framed charges for the offences under Sections 302 and 307 Ranbir Panel Code (RPC), Sections 3 (3) and 4(1) of TADA Act, 1987 and Section 7/27 of Arms Act 1959 read with Section 120- B of RPC include Javed Ahmed Mir, also a former JKLF chief, Showkat Ahmed Bakshi, Muhammad Saleem Nanhaji, Javed Ahmed Zargar, Ali Muhammad Mir and Manzoor Ahmed Sofi alias Mustafa Bakshi.
In August and September 1990, the CBI had filed two chargesheets against Malik and other accused before the designated TADA court in Jammu. The other case pertains to the kidnapping of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammed Sayeed's daughter Rubaiya Sayeed in 1989.
In 1995, a single bench of the J&K High Court stayed the trial in the shooting incident as there was no TADA court in Srinagar. In 2008, Malik approached a special court saying that the trial should be shifted to Srinagar as he was facing security problems in view of the Amarnath land row which had pitted Kashmir Valley against the Jammu region of the State. The CBI filed objections and opposed the application, which was rejected in an order issued by the court on April 20, 2009.
However, in April 2019 decks were cleared for the trial of Malik in TADA court in Jammu in the two cases after standing counsel for CBI, Monika Kohli, argued before the J&K High Court that the agency had opposed transfer of cases to Srinagar which was rejected. She also informed the court that petitions challenging the order of TADA court were filed with the High Court, but these could not be heard. She also informed Justice Sanjay Kumar Gupta that the TADA court in Srinagar was abolished and the designated court in Jammu was given jurisdiction throughout the State with its headquarters in Jammu in May 1990.
In a 27-page judgment, Justice Gupta, while vacating the order by a single bench, had said “... From bare perusal of contents of petitions and relief sought therein, one can definitely come to conclusion that petitioners (Malik) have sought transfer of their cases from designated court Jammu to additional court at Srinagar, which is not permissible under law.”
58-year-old Malik who is currently lodged in Tihar jail was sentenced for life after his conviction in a terror funding case by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in New Delhi in May 2022. He has been demanding that he should be allowed to appear in the court in person to cross examine the witnesses physically. However, the Union Home ministry had in December 2022 passed an order barring Malik from moving out of Tihar jail, because of pending an NIA case against him. However, sources said that the Union home ministry has not agreed to Malik’s being sent to Jammu for personal appearance in the special courts also for security reasons.
Malik has been insisting on personal appearance for cross-examining prosecution witnesses also in the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping. Ms. Rubaiya who currently lives with her family in Tamil Nadu had on July 15, 2022, while testifying before A special CBI court at Jammu as a prosecution witness for the first time identified Malik as one of her abductors.
Malik had, after days of fasting in Tihar jail and brief hospitalisation, in 2022 ended his ‘fast-unto-death’ on being assured by the officials that his concerns regarding personnel appearances in these cases have been forwarded to the senior government authorities.
