JKLF banned under Unlawful Activities Act

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 22

The Centre on Friday banned the Yasin Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)-1967 for allegedly promoting secession of the militancy-hit state from the Union of India.

Announcing the decision, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba said the Centre had followed the policy of “zero tolerance” against terrorism and acted “strongly against terrorists” and in the pursuit of this, it “has today declared the JKLF as an unlawful organisation under the provisions of Section 3(1) of the UAPA-1967”.

Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs said the decision was arrived at after a high-level security meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the Centre was of the opinion that the JKLF was “in close touch with the militant outfits” and was supporting extremism and militancy in J&K and elsewhere.

The Home Secretary also contended that only with this objective, the Centre on February 28 this year had “declared the Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K, as an unlawful association under the UAPA” and it was made clear at that time that the banned organisation was separate from the “Jamaat-e-Islami Hind”.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, J&K, is responsible for the formation of the Hizbul Mujahideen, the biggest terrorist organisation active in the Himalayan state, he added.

Gauba said similarly, the JKLF was an organisation that claims “secession of a part of the Indian territory from the Union” and supports terrorist and separatist groups fighting for this purpose. He said the banned outfit had been at the forefront of the separatist activities in J&K and was involved in the killings of the Kashmiri Pandits in 1989, leading to their exodus from the Valley.

At present, Yasin Malik is lodged at the Kot Balwal jail in Jammu and is likely to face trial in the three-decade-old case of kidnapping of Rubaya Sayeed, the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and gunning down of four Indian Air Force personnel in Srinagar, Gauba added.

The JKLF was founded by Pakistani national Amanullah Khan in mid-1970s at Birmingham in the UK and came into prominence in 1971 when its member hijacked an Indian Airlines plane flying from Srinagar to Jammu.

In all, 37 FIRs have been registered against the JKLF by the J&K Police, Gauba said, adding that the outfit was also involved in the kidnapping and killing of Ravindra Mhatre, an Indian diplomat posted in the UK, in 1984. The crime was committed a week later India executed Maqbool Bhat, a JKLF activist, who had been sentenced to death.

The Home Secretary also said the security review of the J&K-based separatists would continue. In Frebruary, the government withdrew the security of several separatist leaders in the state following the Pulwama terror attack in which over 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force were killed.

The Home Secretary’s order reads... 

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba said the Centre had followed the policy of “zero tolerance” against terrorism and acted “strongly against terrorists” and in the pursuit of this, it “has on Friday declared the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front  as an unlawful organisation under the provisions of Section 3(1) of the  Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act-1967”.