Yasin Malik claims dealings with PMs, IB officials, and role in outreach to Pakistan, militants
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The now jailed former JKLF Kashmir separatist leader Yasin Malik claimed he acted as an envoy to six consecutive governments to bring peace with various militant groups, including meeting Pakistan-based terrorist Hafiz Saeed and other militants in 2006 at the request of then Intelligence Bureau official, and also claimed to have had associations with Prime Ministers, Intelligence chiefs, National Security Advisers, industrialists, and powerful politicians.
Malik, currently lodged in Tihar jail, in an affidavit before the Delhi High Court, alleged that his actions in reaching out to Pakistan and militant leaders were part of state-sanctioned engagements initiated by the Intelligence Bureau and endorsed across successive governments, and he insisted that this process was honoured for over two decades before collapsing after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A in 2019.
He argued that his present trial must be situated in the context of the sweeping clampdown after the constitutional changes, which he said unleashed fear, intimidation, and mass arrests of political leaders, activists, teachers, lawyers, and journalists in Jammu and Kashmir.
Recounting his past, Malik said that in the early 1990s he was moved from Mehrauli sub-jail to a bungalow in Delhi where Home Minister Rajesh Pilot, senior IB officials, and IAS officer Wajahat Habibullah pressed him to surrender arms, and he claimed that then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao ordered his reintegration into democratic politics, which led to his release in 1994 when he announced a unilateral ceasefire and a commitment to non-violent struggle.
He stated that all 32 pending TADA cases were dropped after this truce, which he maintained was respected by governments under Rao, Vajpayee, Gujral, Manmohan Singh, and Modi’s first term.
Malik detailed meetings with influential figures, including IB Director Shyamal Dutta and NSA Brajesh Mishra during Vajpayee’s Ramzan ceasefire, as well as interactions with journalist Prem Shankar Jha, Dr Manmohan Singh, Najma Heptullah, and Congress leaders who he said supported the peace process.
He further claimed that industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani once spoke to him to encourage his efforts, and that his foreign visits, including meetings with US officials such as Christina Rocca, were carried out with passports issued by the Vajpayee government.
He alleged that even his controversial meeting with Hafiz Saeed was authorised by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Special Director V.K. Joshi, and he asserted that IB Director Nehchal Sandhu had himself created a Gmail account for Track II exchanges with a Pakistani handler.
Malik said the assurances given to him were abandoned only after 2019, when old cases were revived and charges were framed anew, breaking what he called a state promise maintained for 25 years.