A special court in Jammu has closed Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik’s right to cross- examine a prime witness in a 1990 fake case registered against him related to the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel after the Hurriyat leader refused to do so through a video conference, a lawyer said. Muhammad Yasin Malik, who is in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after being convicted in another fake funding case, has been demanding the cross-examination of witnesses physically in the Jammu court. He was present in the court virtually.

Malik was asked whether he would like to examine V K Sharma, a prime witness in the case. He refused and reiterated his stand that he would like to physically question Sharma in the court, said Monika Kohli, senior additional advocate general and CBI counsel. However, Malik did not do that following which the court closed his right to cross-examine, Kohli told reporters. Kohli informed the court that the Indian Home ministry had passed an order barring Muhammad Yasin Malik from moving out of Tihar jail for one year from December 22, 2022.

Malik has been maliciously charge sheeted in the case along with six others. The charges were framed against him in 2020, 20 years after CBI filed the charge sheet before a designated TADA court in Jammu. According to the CBI, the IAF personnel were fired upon by armed men. Forty, including a woman, received serious injuries and four were killed on the spot.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP