'From PMs to tycoons, I was their man': Yasin Malik's explosive affidavit before Delhi High Court

Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik has told the Delhi High Court that for nearly three decades he was not acting in isolation, but was part of a carefully cultivated backchannel with Indian Prime Ministers, ministers, intelligence chiefs and even business tycoons, a state-sanctioned engagement he now claims is being erased as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeks to enhance his life term to a death sentence.

In an affidavit before the court, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief, convicted in 2022 for receiving foreign funding and links with militant outfits, has offered a striking narrative.

From phone calls with Dhirubhai Ambani to secret meetings with IB directors, and from dinners with Home Ministers to briefings at the White House, Malik insists he was encouraged and deployed by the Indian state itself to keep alive the “peace track” in Kashmir.

Also Read: Modi government honoured 1994 ceasefire pact: Yasin Malik tells Delhi HC

Malik frames his fate with fatalism: “I understand the balance of scales isn’t tipped in my favour… being a diehard romantic, I would accept it as the ultimate endgame of my fate, gleefully.”

His affidavit situates the current trial in the shadow of Article 370’s abrogation, which he says marked a rupture: “Fear, intimidation, and arrests of thousands of political leaders, activists, teachers, lawyers and journalists followed. Old cases were reopened, charges framed after 31 years.”

He recounts how in the early 1990s, he was taken from Mehrauli sub-jail to a Delhi bungalow, where Home Minister Rajesh Pilot and IB officials pressed him to give up arms, on the direct instructions of then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. By 1994, he was released, announcing a unilateral ceasefire in Srinagar and vowing to pursue a “peaceful, democratic struggle.”

The state, he says, reciprocated. Bail was secured in 32 pending TADA cases and no prosecution followed. “This promise was followed by five Prime Ministers, including the present Prime Minister in his first tenure. But after Article 370 abrogation, everything changed.”

Malik cites his contacts with Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s trusted aide R K Mishra, who once connected him to Dhirubhai Ambani. He also recalls meetings with NSA Brajesh Mishra, IB Director Shyamal Dutta, and later with Congress leaders like Manmohan Singh, Najma Heptullah and Sonia Gandhi.

“We brought the whole opposition on board,” he claims, pointing to Singh’s public endorsement of Vajpayee’s Ramzan ceasefire.

Singh, Malik says, later called him “the father of the non-violent movement in Kashmir.”

The JKLF chief also details his international engagements, including meetings with US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and White House officials, all, he insists, cleared and coordinated with Indian authorities.

Perhaps most controversial is his claim that his 2006 meeting with Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed was facilitated by IB Special Director V K Joshi, who urged him to use his influence to nudge militants towards peace.

On returning, Malik says he debriefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and NSA M K Narayan, who “conveyed their gratitude.” That same meeting now forms part of the charges branding him a terrorist.

Equally sensational is his assertion that a Gmail account cited by the NIA to link him with a Pakistani handler was in fact created by then IB Director Nischal Sandhu for sensitive Track II communications. “This could have been confirmed by NIA,” Malik says, adding that he personally urged the trial judge to verify it.

For 25 years, Malik insists, the truce was honoured: “Across Rao, Vajpayee, Gujral, Manmohan Singh and even Modi’s first term.”

Now, with the NIA pressing for his execution, Malik says he will not resist: “If the state chooses to disengage and disassociate from me as it once engaged, I will accept it, with a smile.”