'Malik has no right to invoke Gandhi, claim to be follower'

Sentencing JKLF chief Yasin Malik on Wednesday, NIA court special judge Parveen Singh said, "When he (Malik) claimed to have given up the path of violence after 1994, the government of India took it at face value and gave him an opportunity to reform, and, in good faith, tried to engage in a meaningful dialogue with him, and, as admitted by him, gave him every platform to express his opinion."

- Abhinav.Garg

Malik betrayed "the good intentions of the government" and "took a different path to orchestrate violence in the guise of political struggle", the special judge said, mentioning how funds mobilised by the JKLF chairman "were used to create unrest" in the form of "paid terror activities of stone-pelting and arson on a mass scale".

"Therefore, in my considered opinion, it is high time that it is recognized that terror funding is one of the gravest offences and has to be punished more severely," the judge observed.

The court chose the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for Malik under Section 17 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, noting that "financing is the backbone of any operation, including terrorist activities". The court handed him a concurrent life term under Section 121 (waging war against the state) of the IPC.