India’s top anti-terrorism investigation agency Friday again sought the death sentence for a leading Kashmiri independence figure after he was given life in prison, official sources said.
Muhammad Yasin Malik, 57, chief of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), pleaded guilty last year to funding terrorism after refusing to accept a government-appointed lawyer or to defend himself against the charges.
The court turned down a plea by the National Investigation Agency for a death sentence, saying capital punishment was for a crime that “shocks the collective consciousness” of society.
On Friday the NIA petitioned the High Court in New Delhi again seeking death sentence for Malik, a senior security official in Indian-administered Kashmir told AFP.
The petition is due for hearing on Monday, legal news website Bar and Bench reported.
The JKLF was one of the first armed freedom fighting groups to come into existence in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It supported an independent and united Kashmir. Led by Malik, the group gave up armed resistance in 1994.
A resistance movement broke out in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in 1989 with fighters demanding an independent Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
