(This is a multi-part series that will appear in the next few days. This is Part-II of the series. Part-I can be read here.)
NEW DELHI: Mohammad Yasin Malik, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), in his affidavit in the Delhi High Court offers one of the most detailed insider accounts yet of his arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment.
It is both a political indictment and a personal chronicle — tracing how, in his words, he moved “from state guest to dreaded terrorist in a matter of a week.”
Malik begins his account with what seemed at first a routine call.
“One evening, while I was having dinner at a friend’s place, a police officer called me on my mobile phone and asked me to come to the police station the next morning,” he states in the affidavit.
Accustomed to such calls, Malik went without resistance. At the station, the reception was not hostile.
“When I went there, I was told by the officer that I was not under arrest but was, in fact, a state guest,” he records.
The term “state guest” was not new to him. For years, Malik had been a reluctant participant in a delicate diplomatic waltz with New Delhi - part dissident, part interlocutor, often summoned, occasionally courted. At that moment, he believed he was still inside that fragile arrangement.
That comfort, Malik says, lasted less than a week.
“After about a week, I was suddenly told that I had been booked under the Public Safety Act,” the affidavit recounts.
The shift was abrupt. No explanation, no new fact on record. He was produced before local authorities and then, within days, handed to the National Investigation Agency.
“Without any prior intimation, I was taken into custody and handed over to the NIA for questioning,” he writes.
In his telling, this was the moment the state’s posture flipped entirely. The same system that once guaranteed him safety now branded him a threat.
The NIA interrogation
The affidavit’s most searing passages describe what Malik says happened inside the NIA headquarters in New Delhi. He names the officer who, he alleges, used physical intimidation and threats of staged death.
“During interrogation at the NIA headquarters, DIG NIA Sonia Narang slapped me repeatedly and threatened that I would be thrown from the fifth floor,” Malik declares.
The officer allegedly told him that if he died, it would be explained as an escape attempt.
“She pointed towards the window and said my death would be written off as trying to run away. I was told no one would question such an account,” Malik states.
Malik also recounts being kept standing for long hours, denied sleep, and mocked about his earlier meetings with Indian prime ministers and intelligence chiefs.
“The officer taunted me, saying, ‘So you were once a state guest, now see where you are,’” Malik recalls.
During interrogation, Malik says the questions often had little to do with the charges in the case. He was pressed for information about ordinary acquaintances in Srinagar, including a local vegetable vendor and others from his neighbourhood.
He was asked repeatedly about Zahoor Watali, a businessman accused of channelling funds from Pakistan. Malik insists in his affidavit that he was never confronted with Watali during custody and that no evidence was shown linking them.
Instead, he says, interrogators kept insisting that he acknowledge financial transactions and networks he had no part in. “I was being forced to take names of people I barely knew, or of persons I had never met, in custody. I told them this was not the truth, but they would not accept it,” he writes.
Solitary confinement in Tihar
From NIA custody, Malik was transferred to Tihar Jail in Delhi. There, he alleges, he was placed in prolonged solitary confinement.
“I was lodged in a small cell, alone, cut off from all human contact. I developed severe chest pain and weakness, yet medical attention was denied,” the affidavit says.
He describes being barred from books, writing material, and regular family visits.
“Even access to my family was curtailed. I was not allowed to read or write. The purpose was to break my will,” he asserts.
For Malik, the isolation itself was a form of torture.
“Solitary confinement is not security. It is punishment designed to silence and destroy,” he writes.
When Malik complained to the court, the jail administration filed its version of events.
“The jail authorities replied that I was being treated as per the rules and that solitary confinement was necessary for my security,” he notes.
Malik disputes that justification.
“These so-called security measures were in fact punitive. They were intended to create a sense of abandonment, to break me mentally and physically,” he insists.
Malik says he eventually refused to eat or drink as a protest against his treatment. “I decided to go on hunger strike and refused both food and water,” he records, adding that the refusal was not born out of bravado but of desperation at the conditions of his confinement.
He describes rapid physical deterioration — severe weakness, chest pain and dizzy spells — and says repeated requests for medical attention and for basic comforts were ignored or delayed by jail staff.
Only after lawyers raised alarms and a magistrate intervened, he was given a medical examination; even then, he says, treatment was slow, and the solitary conditions continued to be used to press him.
After petitions by his lawyers, a magistrate visited his cell. Malik describes it as both a rare chance to speak and a moment of futility.
“I told the magistrate about the torture, the threats to throw me from the fifth floor, and the prolonged solitary confinement. I explained my medical condition and the denial of books and contact,” he recounts.
But nothing changed.
“The magistrate listened, made some notes, and left. No relief followed. For the first time, someone outside heard me, but it ended there,” Malik laments.
A Week Changed Everything
The crux of Malik’s affidavit is the speed of transformation.
“From being told I was a state guest to being called a dreaded terrorist took only seven days,” he emphasises.
He frames that a week as symbolic of a larger political pattern — interlocutors turned into accused, engagement reframed as conspiracy.
“The same state that once facilitated my talks with prime ministers and intelligence chiefs now presents me as an existential threat. My past was erased in a week,” Malik writes.
The Delhi High Court is currently hearing the NIA’s appeal to enhance Malik’s life term to the death penalty. His affidavit is not simply a personal memoir; it is a legal weapon. By documenting custodial threats, solitary confinement, and the abrupt reversal of his status, Malik questions the prosecution’s credibility.
Malik also recounts telling the court that if the only outcome of the proceedings was to brand him a terrorist, then it would be better to sentence him to death outright. “I told the judge in the trial court to give me the death sentence rather than go through this charade,” he says in the affidavit.
He explains that this was why he did not contest the case in the trial court: he felt the process was stacked against him and that there was no space for his political history or his record of dialogue with Indian leaders to be considered.
“I chose not to pursue the case in the lower court because I knew it would make no difference,” he writes, framing his silence as both a protest and an act of defiance.
While indicating the level of custodial abuse, the imagery of his detailed submission, from the ‘fifth-floor window’ to the ‘magistrate’s futile visit’ turns the phrase “state guest” into mockery.
In Kashmir, Malik’s story resonates beyond the courtroom. It mirrors a collective memory of being courted when useful, discarded when inconvenient, becoming the metaphor of the broader experience of betrayal.
“In the end, I was left alone in a cell,” he concludes.
The line defines both his personal plight and his political message.
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