THE BRIDGE THAT BROKE BETWEEN DELHI & KASHMIR

YASIN Malik, once one of Kashmir’s most recognisable separatist faces, is back in headlines. This time not for street protests or peace overtures, but for an explosive affidavit which he has filed in a Delhi court. In it, he claims that successive governments saw him as a bridge between India and Pakistan

- MUKESH RANJAN

YASIN Malik, once one of Kashmir’s most recognisable separatist faces, is back in headlines. This time not for street protests or peace overtures, but for an explosive affidavit which he has filed ina Delhi court. In it, he claims that successive governments saw him as a bridge between India and Pakistan, including with state-backed terrorist outfits there. Malik isnow serving a life sentence in a terror funding case. Inter alia, the accusations against him include being party to the killing of Kashmiri Pandits circa 1990, when he was still a militant. He denies this and claims it as a campaign against him.

Born in 1966 in Srinagar’s volatile Maisuma locality, once dubbed the ‘Gaza of Kashmir’, Malik’s journey as aKalashnikov-wielding militant who later self-proclaimed himself as follower of Mahatma Gandhi has been anything but linear.