Violence couldn't have been committed in J-K without Pak funding: NIA court

A Delhi court on Wednesday, while sentencing Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment in a terror funding case, observed that had there been no funding from Pakistan, violence at this scale could not have been committed in the Kashmir Valley.

Special NIA Judge Praveen Singh observed that financing is the backbone of any operation, including terrorist activities. In the present case, the order on charge specifies how funds were raised and how they were received from the Pakistani establishment as well as designated terrorist Hafeez Saeed and through other hawala operations.

These funds were used to create unrest where under the guise of public protests, paid terror activities of stone-pelting and arson on a mass scale were committed, the court said in the order.

About Malik's role, the court said that betraying good intentions of the government, he took a different path to orchestrate violence in the guise of political struggle.

"The convict claims that he followed the Gandhian principle of nonviolence and spear- headed a peaceful nonviolent struggle. However the evidence on the basis of which charges were framed and to which the convict has pleaded guilty speaks otherwise," it held.

It also said that that with such funding for the convict to conspire to commit these acts and to pay the perpetrators, the violence and mayhem, at this scale, could not have been committed.

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

"The convict has been convicted of offense of terror funding under section 17 of UAPA. The convict was a part of the group which had been receiving funds that were raised for terrorist activities and he had received Rs 10 lakh on April 29, 2015, from accused Ahmad Shah Watali," the order read.