SRINAGAR: Days after JKLF leader Yasin Malik’s arrests, the High Court has permitted the transfer of Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case to Jammu, Hindustan Times reported. The killing of four IAF personnel has also been transferred to Jammu.
Malik is accused in both the high profile cases.
Dr Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was kidnapped on December 8, 1989, by JKLF and her release was bartered with five detained militants on December 13. The kidnapping took place when Mufti was the Home Minister of India.
The IAF shooting case involves the killing of Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, corporal DB Singh, corporal Uday Shankar and Airman Azad Ahmad, when suspected JKLF militants opened fire on a group of IAF men who were waiting for their bus at Rawalpora Chowk, Srinagar.
“Chief justice Gita Mittal passed the order after hearing arguments on two applications filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which had sought the transfer of the petitions to the high court’s Jammu wing,” the newspaper reported.
The chief justice directed the registrar judicial, Srinagar, to take “immediate steps in the matter for conveying the records to the Jammu wing and ensuring that no delay results in the hearing of the matters.”
The CBI counsel TM Shamsi, according to the newspaper had argued that “entire records of the case are located at Jammu” and “that the petitioners are influential persons who were able to delay the trial for a decade (from 1990 to 2009) and then the proceedings before the writ court after having obtained an interim order of stay of the trials on November 26, 2009.”
Malik’s counsel, ZA Shah, has argued that the writ petitions were filed in the Srinagar wing of the high court after obtaining permission from the then chief justice of the court on May 4, 2009. “The writ petitions were listed for March 14, 2019, and it would be “improper” to transfer the cases to the Jammu wing of the high court at this stage,” the newspaper quoted Shah arguing.
“The Srinagar wing of the Jammu and Kashmir HC had in April 2009 stayed the trial in a designated TADA court in Jammu in the cases based on CBI charge sheet,” the newspaper reported. “The HC had then directed that “proceedings before the trial court shall remain in abeyance” and there was no further movement on the writ petitions which have remained pending ever since.”
Police arrested Malik in a late night raid on February 22, from his Maisuma residence and was taken to the Kothibagh Police Station. Later, he was shifted to Kot Balwal jail in Jammu and booked under the Public Safety Act.
His arrest coincided with the CBI filing a plea in the High Court seeking transfer of cases against Malik from Srinagar to Jammu. Apart from the kidnapping and IAF shooting cases, India Today reported that Malik is also an accused in the killing Neelkanth Ganju, the judge who had given death sentence to JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat and the assassination of former director, Doordarshan Kendra in Srinagar, Lassa Kaul.
Within days after his arrest, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided his Maisuma residence on February 26.
