In a heart-break­ing ap­peal to the con­science of hu­mankind, Kash­mir pa­triot Yasin Ma­lik -po­lit­i­cal pris­oner and leader of the Jammu and Kash­mir Lib­er­a­tion Front through a let­ter from the Death row of New Del­hi’s Ti­har jail, has de­clared that he will start a Fast-Unto-Death from 1 April 2020 should the In­dian po­lit­i­cal and le­gal sys­tem not re­spond to his plea for a ju­di­cious jus­tice-de­liv­er­ing sys­tem. Ex­press­ing fully sol­i­dar­ity with Yasin Ma­lik for hold­ing his head high, even in the most try­ing cir­cum­stances, World Sikh News re­pro­duces here the full Open Let­ter which is a scathing in­dict­ment show­ing how the se­cu­rity es­tab­lish­ment, the In­dian ju­di­ciary, the high­est lead­er­ship up to Prime Min­is­ters of the coun­try col­luded to ha­rass, tor­ture, mal­treat and cheat him through lies and sub­terfuge to bring him to­day to a pass where he is forced to lead him­self to death. Will In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal play­ers and in­ter­na­tional lead­ers in­ter­vene? 

YASIN MA­LIK’S YOUNGER SIS­TER AAM­INA, EL­DER SIS­TER AABIDA AND MOTHER AATIKA, while ad­dress­ing the me­dia in Sri­na­gar said, “We are liv­ing a trou­bled life. His health is re­ally bad. He has a 30-year-old false case foisted on him. He is be­ing mal­treated and not given proper med­i­cine know­ing fully well that his heart con­di­tion is bad. He is not pro­duced in court and video-con­fer­enc­ing works only one way.”  His anx­ious wife Mushaal Hus­sein Mul­lick has tweeted about his de­ci­sion to go on a fast unto death.

In a 30-year-old case of the deaths of 4 In­dian Air­force per­son­nel in­clud­ing Squadron leader Ravi Khanna on 25 Jan­u­ary  1990, a TADA court in Jammu has framed charges against Yasin Ma­lik, Ali Mohd Mir, Man­zoor Ahmed Sofi alias Mushtafa, Javed Ahmed Mir alias Nalka, Nanaji alias Saleem, Javed Ahmed Zarger and Shoukat Ahmed Bak­shi for of­fences un­der Sec­tions  302, 307 RPC, Sec­tion 3 (3) and Sec­tion 4(1) of TADA Act, 1987 and Sec­tion 7/​27 of Arms Act 1959 r/​w Sec­tion 120- B of RPC. Yasin Ma­lik told the court that he was not guilty and that it was a fab­ri­cated case.

Kash­miri na­tion­al­ist lead­ers are be­hind bars. Hu­man rights de­fend­ers and civil so­ci­ety need to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion and in­ter­vene.  Read the full let­ter here:

From: Muham­mad Yasin Ma­lik   

                                                                                    Ti­har Jail 7 Delhi In­dia     

Dated: 19th March 2020  

Ladies and Gen­tle­men: 

With due re­spect, I was ar­rested in 1986 when I was a 12th class stu­dent on a charge of pub­lish­ing stick­ers of In­de­pen­dent Kash­mir. I was sent to red six­teen-in­ter­ro­ga­tion cen­tre for 15 days and then three months in Po­lice lock-up. When I was re­leased, I formed a stu­dent or­gan­i­sa­tion, namely Is­lamic Stu­dents League. It was the most fa­mous stu­dent or­gan­i­sa­tion in Kash­mir.

In the year 1986, a po­lit­i­cal fo­rum came into ex­is­tence in Jammu Kash­mir namely Mus­lim United Front (MUF). It was a fo­rum of dif­fer­ent re­li­gious, po­lit­i­cal and so­cial or­gan­i­sa­tions. MUF in­vited Is­lamic stu­dents League to be­come con­stituent of this fo­rum and we ac­cepted this in­vi­ta­tion. I was cho­sen to rep­re­sent our or­gan­i­sa­tion in the ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil of Mus­lim United Front (MUF). J&K as­sem­bly elec­tions were sched­uled In March 1987.

In ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing of Mus­lim United Front, there was a de­bate about con­test­ing in these elec­tions. MUF de­cided that in case of win­ning these elec­tions, it will bring a res­o­lu­tion in JK as­sem­bly for res­o­lu­tion of the Kash­mir dis­pute. ISL told MUF, that though it was ready to sup­port MUF in elec­tions, but will not field any can­di­date to con­test. ISL sup­ported MUF elec­tion cam­paign and peo­ple of Jammu Kash­mir in gen­eral voted for it but on the re­sult date, the win­ners were de­clared as loser, and the losers as the win­ner.

An ar­rest spree was un­leashed and I was ar­rested from the count­ing hall, sent to in­ter­ro­ga­tion cen­tre, tor­tured which gave me blood in­fec­tion and as a re­sult was shifted to The Po­lice Hos­pi­tal Sri­na­gar. It was at the said hos­pi­tal where I was di­ag­nosed with a dam­aged heart valve. I along with hun­dreds of mem­bers was de­tained un­der Black Law, the Pub­lic Safety Act (PSA). Af­ter our re­lease from jail, we the fol­low­ers of non-vi­o­lence got con­vinced that there was no space for a non-vi­o­lent de­mo­c­ra­tic po­lit­i­cal move­ment in In­dia.

I will pre­fer an ho­n­ourable death in­stead of dis­grace­ful life. Please note that I have al­ready pledged to do­nate all my vi­tal or­gans to the needy ones af­ter my death and I hope every­one will ho­n­our my last wish in case I breathe my last dur­ing my fast.  

It is very un­for­tu­nate that the coun­try which claims Ma­hatma Gandhi as its guide, a man who pre­sented the idea of non-vi­o­lence to the whole world and in­spired lead­ers like Mar­tin Luther King Jr., Nel­son Man­dela and many oth­ers like these. It is a sorry state of af­fairs that to­day in a coun­try which calls Gandhi Ji as its fa­ther of na­tion, not even a small space for a non-vi­o­lent po­lit­i­cal move­ment is per­mit­ted. It is an ir­refutable fact that had British Em­pire not pro­vided a gen­uine po­lit­i­cal space to Ma­hatma Gandhi and his co­horts, their non-vi­o­lent move­ment would not have sus­tained and suc­ceeded.

It is known to every­one that dur­ing the free­dom strug­gle of In­dia there were two school of thoughts fight­ing for the free­dom of In­dia. One rep­re­sented by Bha­gat Singh, Chan­dra Shehkar Azad, Ash­faq-Ul­lah, Ram Prakash Bis­mil, Raj Guru and many oth­ers who be­lieved in armed strug­gle and the sec­ond one rep­re­sented by Gandhi Ji and his friends who be­lieved in non-vi­o­lent strug­gle.

I was able to col­lect 1.5 Mil­lion sig­na­tures through this process. In 2006, I had for­mal meet­ings with Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh in Delhi. I pre­sented 1.5 Mil­lion sig­na­tures of the peo­ple of Jammu Kash­mir and as­sured him sup­port for his di­a­logue process with both Pak­istan and Kash­miri Lead­er­ships. This process kept mov­ing smoothly and in 2009 the then Home Min­is­ter of In­dia Mr. Chi­dambaram started a covert di­a­logue process with Kash­miri lead­er­ship.

It is a fact that British Gov­ern­ment ar­rested Gandhi Ji and other con­gress lead­ers many a times but never sent them to any tor­ture cen­tre.  There was a gen­uine po­lit­i­cal space for Gand­hi’s peace­ful strug­gle and it was be­cause of the fact that British used to call con­gress party as a vent­ing knob of pres­sure cooker.

When we, the non-vi­o­lent po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists of Kash­mir, failed to find any space for peace­ful de­mo­c­ra­tic pol­i­tics, we got com­pelled to tread an armed path in 1988 un­der the ban­ner of Jammu Kash­mir Lib­er­a­tion Front (JKLF). Whole world knows that Kash­miris have no his­tory of vi­o­lence and also that start­ing an armed strug­gle was not our de­sire but it was rather a com­pul­sion.

On 06th Au­gust 1990, I was ar­rested by Bor­der se­cu­rity force (BSF) as com­man­der in chief of the JKLF. On 8th Au­gust 1990, I was shifted to Ti­har Jail in Delhi. In the month of No­vem­ber 1990, I was shifted to a guest house at Mehruli, where the then IG BSF Ashok Pa­tel, Spe­cial di­rec­tor Mr. Roy @ Dr. Mathur, and the then DG po­lice J&K G.N. Sex­ena used to pay fre­quent vis­its to me. These of­fi­cers were try­ing to con­vince me to have a din­ner with the then prime min­is­ter of In­dia Chan­dera Shakher Ji. I re­fused this of­fer and was shifted to cen­tral Jail Agra (UP) in Feb­ru­ary 1991. BSF Chief Ashok Pa­tel and Spe­cial di­rec­tor Mr.Roy used to visit me in this jail rather men­tal asy­lum too pur­su­ing me to start a po­lit­i­cal process.

In the year 2000, In­dian Prime Min­is­ter late Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee de­clared fa­mous Ramzan cease­fire in Jammu Kash­mir and started a com­pre­hen­sive di­a­logue process. Spe­cial Di­rec­tor Mr. Ajit Ku­mar Doval who is now NSA of In­dia met me in Delhi. He arranged a meet­ing with the then Di­rec­tor IB Mr. Sham Data and then na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor Mr. Bri­jesh Mishra sep­a­rately. Both gen­tle­men told me that PM Va­j­payee was se­ri­ous about the di­a­logue process for re­solv­ing the Kash­mir Is­sue. They ap­pealed me to sup­port this Ramzan cease­fire and peace process an­nounce­ments. I and other lead­ers’ re­sis­tance move­ment whole heart­edly sup­ported Va­j­payee Ramzan cease­fire as well as his di­a­logue process pub­licly.

On 24 Feb­ru­ary 1992, I was shifted to All In­dia In­sti­tute of Med­ical Sci­ences (AI­IMS) from Agra Cen­tral Jail be­cause my health had badly de­te­ri­o­rated. At AI­IMS, I was op­er­ated upon and one of my heart valve was re­placed with an ar­ti­fi­cial one. IB Spe­cial Di­rec­tor Mr Roy along with Deputy in­spec­tor gen­eral IB Mr Sharma came num­ber of times to see me at said hos­pi­tal. In­dian civil So­ci­ety mem­bers like Kuldeep Nair, Mr. Raj Mo­han Gandhi (Grand­son of Ma­hatma Gandhi) and Ex-chief Jus­tice of Delhi High Court, Ra­jen­der Sachar Ji came to see me in hos­pi­tal many a times. I was shifted to Farm House in Mehraulli, which served as a sub-jail un­der Ti­har Jail. At this In Mehrauli Farm house, the then Gov­er­nor of Ut­ter Pradesh (UP), the then Gov­er­nor of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Ex- jus­tice of In­dian Supreme Court Jus­tice Mad­hoskar came to see me. They again tried to con­vince me for start­ing a Po­lit­i­cal route and start a di­a­logue process.

Late Kuldeep Nair and Jus­tice Ra­jen­der Sachar also came to meet me at Mehraulli Sub jail num­ber of times with the same mes­sage. They wanted me to give peace a chance again.  Dur­ing this in­car­cer­a­tion pe­riod, one day I was taken to a house in Ma­ha­rani Bagh Delhi where the then In­dian Home Min­is­ter Ra­jesh Pi­lot along with many se­nior of­fi­cers es­pe­cially Wa­ja­hat Habib-ul­lah were pre­sent there. I came to know that it was a din­ner meet­ing.  Dur­ing the said din­ner Ra­jesh Pi­lot, IB of­fi­cers and Wa­ja­hat Habibul­lah talked about the na­ture of Kash­miris and asked from me that as Peo­ple of Kash­mir have no his­tory of vi­o­lence, how had I and my col­leagues turned to Arms.

In re­ply I told them every­thing about the vi­o­lence un­leashed by the state against our peace­ful po­lit­i­cal strug­gle. The re­ply from In­dian friends was that Kash­miri re­sponse to state ag­gres­sion and lack of po­lit­i­cal space was jus­ti­fied. In­dian friends also said that they lacked in­for­ma­tion and true knowl­edge about the hap­pen­ings in Jammu Kash­mir for which they were highly re­pen­tant. Af­ter ac­knowl­edg­ing my stance, In­dian friends re­quested me pon­der upon their re­quest of giv­ing one more chance to the non-Vi­o­lent peace­ful move­ment. Mr Kuldeep Nair, jus­tice Sachar, Gov­er­nor AP and Gov­er­nor UP and Supreme Court jus­tice Mad­horkar again came to me with same pro­posal sep­a­rately at Mehrauli sub jail.

There were many more meet­ings with Home Min­is­ter Ra­jesh Pi­lot, Wa­ja­hat Habib-Ul­lah and other higher of­fi­cials at Ma­ha­rani Bagh house. Amer­i­can (US) gov­ern­ment, British (UK) gov­ern­ment and many other in­ter­na­tional play­ers’ diplo­mats were on board too con­stantly pur­su­ing the same idea. Every­one was ask­ing me to give peace one more chance. I was told that if I shunned the armed path and re­turned to peace­ful non-vi­o­lent strug­gle, we would be pro­vided with a gen­uine po­lit­i­cal space and ef­forts will be made for the res­o­lu­tion of Kash­mir dis­pute through mean­ing­ful di­a­logue process be­tween all rel­e­vant par­ties. Sit­u­a­tion on ground and above all com­mit­ments from all above-men­tioned par­ties es­pe­cially from the In­dian state about po­lit­i­cal space, process of ne­go­ti­ated set­tle­ment and that all mil­i­tancy re­lated cases reg­is­tered against JKLF cadres and my­self will not be pur­sued fur­ther pro­vided enough ma­te­r­ial for me to con­sider this of­fer.

There were many more meet­ings with Home Min­is­ter Ra­jesh Pi­lot, Wa­ja­hat Habib-Ul­lah and other higher of­fi­cials at Ma­ha­rani Bagh house. Amer­i­can (US) gov­ern­ment, British (UK) gov­ern­ment and many other in­ter­na­tional play­ers’ diplo­mats were on board too con­stantly pur­su­ing the same idea. Every­one was ask­ing me to give peace one more chance.

I ac­cepted trans­for­ma­tion with­out sur­ren­der­ing my ide­ol­ogy and af­ter my re­lease in May 1994, held a press con­fer­ence in Sri­na­gar and de­clared a uni­lat­eral cease­fire. I pledged to fol­low a non-vi­o­lent path and with God’s grace till date am ad­her­ing to that pledge. The an­nounce­ment of cease­fire in 1994 was not an easy job. It was in fact a most dan­ger­ous and un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sion. I was de­clared as a trai­tor by many. I mirac­u­lously es­caped a bid on my life when I was kid­napped by some mil­i­tants. Many of my col­leagues lost their lives too but me and mem­bers of JKLF stood firm to our de­ci­sion and pur­sued the path of non-vi­o­lent strug­gle against all odds. It should be noted that at the time of my de­clar­ing cease­fire, as per the Gov­ern­ment records and state­ment, there were more than 20,000 ac­tive mil­i­tants in Kash­mir.

In the year 2000, In­dian Prime Min­is­ter late Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee de­clared fa­mous Ramzan cease­fire in Jammu Kash­mir and started a com­pre­hen­sive di­a­logue process. Spe­cial Di­rec­tor Mr. Ajit Ku­mar Doval who is now NSA of In­dia met me in Delhi. He arranged a meet­ing with the then Di­rec­tor IB Mr. Sham Data and then na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor Mr. Bri­jesh Mishra sep­a­rately. Both gen­tle­men told me that PM Va­j­payee was se­ri­ous about the di­a­logue process for re­solv­ing the Kash­mir Is­sue. They ap­pealed me to sup­port this Ramzan cease­fire and peace process

My hus­band Mo­ham­mad Yasin Ma­lik an­nounces FAST TILL DEATH at TI­HAR DEATH CELL FROM 1st APRIL 2020 …….His Open Let­ter to the Dead Con­science of the World ‘My “FAST UNTO DEATH” will start from 1st April 2020#FreeYas­in­Ma­lik @mbachelet @an­to­nioguter­res @UN @hrw @UN­Hu­man­Rights pic.twit­ter.com/​hi0qLQTtvQ

— Mushaal Hus­sein Mul­lick (@Mushaal­Mul­lick) March 20, 2020

an­nounce­ments. I and other lead­ers’ re­sis­tance move­ment whole heart­edly sup­ported Va­j­payee Ramzan cease­fire as well as his di­a­logue process pub­licly.

In 2002, I started a sig­na­ture cam­paign through­out whole Jammu Kash­mir. Pur­pose of this Sig­na­ture Cam­paign was to pro­mote Non-Vi­o­lent mode of strug­gle in Kash­mir and to sup­port peace­ful di­a­logue process which can re­solve the Kash­mir dis­pute. It took me two and a half years to visit every vil­lage, hun­dreds of schools, Col­leges and other places in Kash­mir.

I was able to col­lect 1.5 Mil­lion sig­na­tures through this process. In 2006, I had for­mal meet­ings with Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh in Delhi. I pre­sented 1.5 Mil­lion sig­na­tures of the peo­ple of Jammu Kash­mir and as­sured him sup­port for his di­a­logue process with both Pak­istan and Kash­miri Lead­er­ships. This process kept mov­ing smoothly and in 2009 the then Home Min­is­ter of In­dia Mr. Chi­dambaram started a covert di­a­logue process with Kash­miri lead­er­ship.

I, too met him num­ber of times dur­ing that process and dis­cussed var­i­ous as­pects and ways of re­solv­ing this vexed hu­man is­sue. In the year 2010 an all-party par­lia­men­tary del­e­ga­tion vis­ited Kash­mir and met the lead­er­ship here. They vis­ited me too and dis­cussed way for­ward on peace and di­a­logue process.

Ladies and Gen­tle­men: from 1994, af­ter the de­c­la­ra­tion of my uni­lat­eral cease­fire, I and my col­leagues in JKLF have re­mained firm on non-vi­o­lent strug­gle. There is not a sin­gle ev­i­dence about me or my JKLF col­leagues have ever since sup­ported any act of armed strug­gle overtly or covertly or pro­vide any kind of help to any armed group. It is also a fact that from last 30 years Mil­i­tancy re­lated cases reg­is­tered against me and my col­leagues were not pur­sued by any gov­ern­ment and all gov­ern­ments from 1994 led by prime min­is­ters like P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gu­jral, Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee, Man Mo­han Singh to a large ex­tent ho­n­oured the pledge made by the In­dian Gov­ern­ment in 1994 to us.

Even through the first five years of pre­sent gov­ern­ment led by PM Naran­der Modi there was no trial of Mil­i­tancy re­lated cases against me and my col­leagues. But sud­denly from 2019 TADA court in Jammu started trial of these 30 year old mil­i­tancy re­lated cases which is ac­tu­ally against the spirit of cease­fire pledge made in 1994. It is a fact that Peo­ple live with trust and ho­n­our pledges and covenants even with their bit­ter en­e­mies.

Right now I am in­car­cer­ated in Ti­har Jail No 7, booked un­der Un­law­ful ac­ti­vates Act. A con­cocted case has been framed against me by NIA too and on the other hand a trial is go­ing on in Jammu TADA Court where with­out hear­ing me or giv­ing me a chance to rep­re­sent me, I and my col­leagues have been charge-sheeted on 16th March 2020.

I have al­ready with­drawn my coun­sel and will sent the same in writ­ing to the judge, but the Judge is not ready to lis­ten to me, and is be­hav­ing like any Pros­e­cut­ing or po­lice of­fi­cer. He only makes every­one lis­ten to his or­ders and when­ever I tried to speak, he mutes the vol­ume or goes of­fline. This ac­tu­ally shows his and bias and prej­u­dice against me and my friends.

Though I have every le­gal right to be pre­sented phys­i­cally be­fore the court but the Judge and the CBI at the be­hest of gov­ern­ment are not al­low­ing me to pre­sent my­self be­fore the trial Court phys­i­cally. I am be­ing pre­sented through Video link con­fer­ence, where nei­ther I am able to hear the ar­gu­ments of lawyers nor am I be­ing al­lowed to speak.

I have al­ready with­drawn my coun­sel and will sent the same in writ­ing to the judge, but the Judge is not ready to lis­ten to me, and is be­hav­ing like any Pros­e­cut­ing or po­lice of­fi­cer. He only makes every­one lis­ten to his or­ders and when­ever I tried to speak, he mutes the vol­ume or goes of­fline. This ac­tu­ally shows his and bias and prej­u­dice against me and my friends.

These cases are ac­tu­ally po­lit­i­cally mo­ti­vated cases and the prej­u­dice shown by the judge and oth­ers have made things worse and com­pli­cated.

Tak­ing all these things in con­sid­er­a­tion, I have reached to the con­clu­sion that I must go on an in­def­i­nite hunger strike against this au­thor­i­tar­ian at­ti­tude and dis­hon­our­ing of the 1994 cease­fire pledge by In­dian gov­ern­ment. My “FAST UNTO DEATH” will start from 1st April 2020, In­sha’Al­lah. I have re­lent­lessly worked hard for the free­dom of my na­tion, for a peace­ful ne­go­ti­ated set­tle­ment of Jammu Kash­mir is­sue and for the pro­mo­tion of non-vi­o­lence.

I will pre­fer an ho­n­ourable death in­stead of dis­grace­ful life. Please note that I have al­ready pledged to do­nate all my vi­tal or­gans to the needy ones af­ter my death and I hope every­one will ho­n­our my last wish in case I breathe my last dur­ing my fast.

Long live re­sis­tance, long live free­dom….