Centre bans Yasin Malik-led JKLF
NEW DELHI: The Yasin Malik-led Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was banned on Friday for a series of violent acts and being in the forefront of separatist activities in the militancy-hit state since 1988, Union home secretary Rajiv Gauba said.
This is the second organisation in J&K which has been banned this month. Earlier, the
Centre had banned the Jamaat-eislami.
Listing out its subversive and violent activities, Gauba said the JKLF spearheaded the separatist ideology in Kashmir valley and the action was taken following the “zero tolerance” policy of the central government against terrorism.
“Murders of Kashmiri Pandits by JKLF in 1989 triggered their exodus from the valley. Malik was the mastermind behind the purging of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley and is responsible for their genocide.
“The JKLF has many serious cases registered against it. This organisation is responsible for murder of four Indian Air Force personnel and kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in the VP Singh government,” he told a press conference here after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security took the decision to ban the separatist group.
“The central government, in its pursuit of strong action against terrorism, has today declared JKLF (Yasin faction) as an unlawful association under the provisions of Section 3(1) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967,” he said.
Malik is at present lodged in Kot Balwal jail in Jammu and is likely to face trial in the threedecade-old case of kidnapping of Rubaya Sayeed and gunning down of four IAF personnel in Srinagar.
The JKLF was founded by Pakistani national Amanullah Khan in mid-1970 at Birmingham in the United Kingdom and came into prominence in 1971 when its member hijacked an Indian Airlines plane flying from Srinagar to Jammu.