(This is a multi-part series that will appear in the next few days. This is Part-I of the series.)
NEW DELHI: In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court, Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik has painted a startling picture of his decades-long involvement in India’s backchannel diplomacy — from intimate dinners with ministers and intelligence chiefs to a phone call with industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani.
The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman was convicted and sentenced to a life term by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court for receiving foreign funding and links with militant outfits. The NIA has now appealed to the Delhi High Court for enhancing the life term to a death sentence.
Malik says he accepts his fate “gleefully,” but insists his journey was shaped not in isolation, but through deep, state-sanctioned engagement.
Malik opens with a note of fatalism: “I understand the balance of scales isn’t tipped in my favour and a statement is to be made out for Kashmir using me as a precedent… being a diehard romantic, I would accept it as the ultimate endgame of my fate, gleefully.”
He situates his current trial in the aftermath of Article 370 and 35A’s abrogation, which he says unleashed “fear, intimidation, and arrests of thousands of political leaders, activists, teachers, lawyers and journalists.”
Secret dinners, Ambani on the line
In the early 1990s, Malik recalls being taken from Mehrauli sub-jail to a bungalow in Maharani Bagh, where Home Minister Rajesh Pilot, IAS officer Wajahat Habibullah, and senior IB officers pressed him to surrender his arms.
Malik claims P.V. Narasimha Rao, then prime minister, had given specific orders to bring him back into democratic politics. After three years of negotiations, he was released in May 1994, announcing a unilateral ceasefire in Srinagar and declaring he would pursue “a non-violent democratic peaceful struggle, come what may.”
The government followed through. Bail was granted in all 32 pending TADA cases, and none were pursued. Malik insists this truce was honoured for 25 years — across the tenures of Rao, Vajpayee, Gujral, Manmohan Singh and even Modi’s first term.
At one such meeting, R.K. Mishra, trusted aide of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, once handed him a phone. On the other end was Dhirubhai Ambani. Malik says Ambani spoke warmly about his “humble and nimble beginnings” and stressed that “sheer hard work often results in rewarding results.” The call, Malik suggests, symbolised the unusual breadth of his contacts — from ministers to tycoons.
Ramzan Ceasefire 2000
During the 2000 Ramzan ceasefire, Malik says he met IB Director Shyamal Dutta and NSA Brajesh Mishra, who assured him that Prime Minister Vajpayee was “serious in the talks process.”
Soon after, journalist Prem Shankar Jha hosted a three-hour meeting at his Golf Links residence, attended by Dr. Manmohan Singh, Najma Heptullah and other Congress leaders. Singh asked, “What do you expect from us?” Malik replied: “As opposition, support Prime Minister Vajpayee’s peace process fully.”
The very next day, Singh led a Congress delegation to Vajpayee and publicly endorsed the ceasefire. Vajpayee sent thanks through R.K. Mishra. Malik later met Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath, and ex-prime ministers V.P. Singh and I.K. Gujral. Communist leaders A.B. Bardhan and Prakash Karat also lent support. “We brought the whole opposition on board,” Malik recalls.
He says Manmohan Singh, once prime minister, even told him: “I consider you the father of the non-violent movement in Kashmir.”
Malik’s narrative also extends beyond India. He recounts meetings with US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca, State Department officials on Capitol Hill, and, later, a White House briefing with Elisabeth Millard, special assistant to President Bush. He says his trips abroad — on a passport issued by Vajpayee’s government — were coordinated with Indian authorities and witnessed by American and European envoys.
Joshi Mission: Meeting Hafiz Saeed
Perhaps most telling is Malik’s account of his 2006 meeting with Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, as this has been made part of his charges, which led to his conviction. Far from clandestine, Malik claims it was initiated by IB Special Director V.K. Joshi.
According to Malik, Joshi met him in New Delhi and said it would be “very helpful” if he could engage Saeed and other Pakistani leaders to strengthen Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s peace process. Malik agreed, travelled to Pakistan, and in a public function with Saeed and the United Jihad Council, urged militants to embrace peace: “If somebody offers you peace, purchase peace with him.”
On returning, Malik says he immediately debriefed Singh and NSA M.K. Narayan, who “conveyed their gratitude.” Yet years later, the same meeting was “portrayed out of context” to brand him a terrorist.
Mystery of ‘Parvaiz Ahmed’
Equally sensational is Malik’s claim that the prosecution’s allegation of contact with a Pakistani handler named Parvaiz Ahmed is built on a fabrication. He says IB Director Nischal Sandhu himself created a Gmail account — parvezahmed1951@gmail.com — and handed it to him for sensitive exchanges tied to Track II efforts.
“This could have been confirmed by NIA from the Director IB,” Malik writes, adding that he privately urged the trial judge to verify it, in the presence of NIA lawyers. Instead, he says, the email has been weaponised to paint him as colluding with militants.
For 25 years, Malik says, the understanding was honoured: no TADA trials, continuing dialogue, and engagement even with the RSS and Shankaracharyas. But after August 2019, everything shifted. Old cases were reopened, charges framed after 31 years.
“The Indian state gave me a promise that neither I nor my party colleagues’ TADA cases will be followed,” Malik writes. “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’s affidavit is a blend of revelations and accusations: he admits to once taking up arms, but insists that for three decades, he was engaged with the state to bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir. He briefed prime ministers and carried out peace missions at the request of intelligence officers in good faith.
Now, as the High Court considers whether his life term should be converted into a death sentence, Malik says he is ready: “If the state chooses to disengage and disassociate from me as it once engaged, I will accept it — with a smile.”
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