Rubaiya Sayeed identifies JKLF chief Yasin Malik, 3 others as her abductors

JAMMU: Former J&K chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya Sayeed, who appeared before a special CBI court on Friday in a case related to her 1989 abduction, identified JKLF chief Yasin Malik and three others as her abductors.
Rubaiya was abducted near Srinagar’s Lal Ded Hospital on December 8, 1989, and freed from captivity five days later on December 13 after the then VP Singh government, supported by the BJP at the Centre, released five terrorists in exchange for her safe return. Her father was the Union home minister at the time.

Malik is at present lodged in Tihar Jail and he was present in the court through videoconferencing. He was arrested in early 2019 in connection with the 2017 terror-funding case registered by the NIA and was sentenced to life imprisonment in May this year.
This is the first time Rubaiya was asked to appear in the case. Rubaiya, who stays in Tamil Nadu, is listed as a prosecution witness by the CBI, which took over investigations into the case in early 1990. The case had gone cold and was revived after Malik was picked up by the NIA on charges of terror-funding.

In January last year, the CBI framed charges against 10 people, including Malik, for Rubaiya’s abduction. Besides Malik, others charged in the case are Ali Mohammed Mir, Mohammed Zaman Mir, Iqbal Ahmad Gandroo, Javed Ahmad Mir, Mohammed Rafiq Pahloo, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi, Wajahat Bashir, Mehraj-ud-Din Sheikh and Showkat Ahmad Bakshi.
During the investigation, Ali Mohammad Mir, Zaman Mir and Iqbal Gandroo voluntarily confessed before a magistrate to their role in the abduction of Rubaiya and four others made confessional statements before CBI’s superintendent of police.
Two days ago, Malik sought the court’s permission for his physical appearance so that he could cross-question the witnesses in the case. If denied the chance, he threatened to sit on an indefinite hunger strike in the prison.