'Yasin Malik deserves a fair trial': Sajad Lone backs jailed J&K leader, targets Mufti family

Rubaiya Sayeed, the sister of former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti, has recently identified Yasin Malik as one of her abductors in the 1989 kidnapping case.

SRINAGAR: Days after Rubaiya Sayeed, the sister of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, identified Yasin Malik as her abductor in the 1989 kidnapping case, Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Gani Lone has come out in support of the jailed J&K separatist leader and said that “he deserves a fair trial.”

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a party function in Srinagar, Lone said that Malik deserves a fair trial "He should be given a fair trial. Justice cannot be a one-sided affair,” Sajad told reporters.

On the identification of Yasin Malik and three others by Rubaiya Sayeed, the sister of former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti in the special CBI Court in Jammu, Lone said it is their decision, “but those getting people identified and indicted don’t have the right to talk about reconciliation and dialogue”.

“They have every right to identify and indict those involved. But those identifying and indicting people have no moral right to talk about reconciliation and dialogue. Priyanka Gandhi even forgave the killers of her own father,” Lone said.

After Rubaiya Sayeed identified Malik and three others as her abductors, Mehbooba Mufti had said she did her duty as per law.

Malik has threatened to go on hunger strike in Delhi's Tihar jail on July 22 if his demands for a "fair trial" and "physical presence in the courts" are not met, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) stated in an official statement on Monday.

The separatist leader is serving a life sentence in a terror funding case, while he and his associates are on trial in two other cases: the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of then-Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, in 1989, and the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) officials in 1990.

Malik filed an application with the central government last week demanding a personal appearance in the two cases. In March 2020, a TADA court in Jammu framed charges against Malik and six others allegedly involved in the killing of four unarmed IAF officials, including squadron leader Ravi Khanna, in 1990 in Srinagar.