Yasin Malik says divorcing Pakistani wife. Is he playing victim card in Sarla Bhat case?

Yasin Malik's affidavit in the Sarla Bhat case seeks to end his marriage and his battle in court, as he says he will no longer contest it. But by claiming he was falsely implicated in the case and asking for the death penalty, Malik appears to be portraying himself as the victim.

Jailed Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Mohammad Yasin Malik, accused in the 1990 killing of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat, has declared in a 25-page affidavit that he is divorcing his Pakistani wife Mushaal Hussein Mullick, citing his prolonged incarceration. At the same time, Malik continues to deny any role in Bhat's killing while seeking capital punishment, a move that appears aimed at portraying himself as a victim.

Yasin Malik has been married to Mullick, a Pakistani citizen, since 2009. "Before I am hanged, I have decided to separate you from the bond of nikkah," Malik wrote in his affidavit.

The 60-year-old Malik has been incarcerated for more than seven years after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him in 2019. In 2022, a special NIA court in Delhi sentenced him to life imprisonment after convicting him on charges related to terrorism financing and separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir.

He also faces prosecution in several other cases linked to the peak of militancy and violence in the Kashmir Valley in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Besides the Sarla Bhat murder case, Yasin Malik is accused of being involved in the 1990 attack on Indian Air Force personnel in Srinagar, in which four servicemen were killed, and the 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

WHY YASIN MALIK IS DIVORCING HIS PAKISTANI WIFE

It was against this backdrop that Malik submitted a 25-page affidavit declaring that he was dissolving his marriage with his Pakistani wife so that she could "spend the remainder of her life" without having to "carry the burden of his circumstances or live as a widow", news agency PTI reported.

More significantly, Malik, who has already been convicted of charges related to terror financing and separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, has continued to deny any role in the murder of Sarla Bhat. Instead, he has alleged that he is the victim of a decades-old conspiracy to falsely implicate him in the case.

Malik strongly refuted the State Investigation Agency’s (SIA) chargesheet, describing them as a "subsequent invention" made more than three decades after the alleged crime. He claimed that in April 1990, around the time Bhat was allegedly kidnapped and murdered, he was critically injured after falling from a building during a BSF raid in Narwara. Malik said he remained in a coma and was twice reported dead by news outlets, including state-run Doordarshan.

"It is incomprehensible how a person who was unconscious, fighting for his own survival and widely believed to be dead could have participated in, directed or orchestrated the commission of the offence," Malik claimed in the affidavit.

Malik also declared that he would no longer contest the ongoing trial, saying he had placed his "entire case in the hands of God."

"Considering my personal circumstances and after deep reflection, I have decided not to contest the trial proceedings further. My decision shall not be treated as an admission of any prosecution fact, guilt or acceptance of the allegations made against me. I request for capital punishment," Malik stated in his court submission, as reported by PTI.

WHO IS YASIN MALIK'S WIFE MUSHAAL HUSSEIN MULLICK

Yasin Malik's wife, Mushaal Hussein Malik, has been in the news on and off. In August, according to a report in The Express Tribune, Mushaal offered to mediate as Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) was caught in massive protests to which the Pakistani establishment cracked down with a heavy hand.

In 2023, Mushaal was made a part of the federal caretaker government in Pakistan. She was appointed special advisor to the caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on human rights and women empowerment, according to a GeoTV report.

According to earlier reports, Yasin Malik met Mushaal in 2005 when he was on a visit to Pakistan to garner support for his separatist movement.

Mushaal holds a post-graduate degree in political economy from London School of Economics, and is also known for dabbling in the world of art, including drawing nude images. Her mother, Rehana Hussain Malik, was a Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader, while her father, M A Hussain Malik, was an internationally renowned Pakistani economist.

A report in India Today Magazine on Yasin and Mushaal's marriage in 2009 says that earlier it was said that the militant leader had vowed in the 1980s to practice celibacy for the sake of insurgency but the Karachi's beauty had melted his resolve.

IS YASIN MALIK PLAYING THE VICTIM CARD?

Bringing his wife Mushaal into the picture, Yasin Malik, for all intents and purposes, is attempting to portray himself as a political actor caught up in a larger conflict, rather than as a militant leader whose organisation played a key role in spreading terror in the Kashmir Valley in the 1990s.

"To me, it's very clear that the affidavit is clearly doing damage control," wrote analyst and columnist Amana Begam Ansari on X.

"Malik is trying to highlight coercion, unfair process, his post-1994 non-violent political role, contacts with Indian officials, and the broader Kashmir conflict in ways that make him appear less like an unrepentant terrorist and more like a political actor caught in a larger conflict," wrote Ansari.

Analysts say Malik is portraying himself as the victim of what he claims was a coercive and unfair investigation and trial, while presenting himself as a man on the verge of facing the hangman's noose. His decision to dissolve his marriage with his Pakistani wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick, fits into this broader narrative, casting himself as an unfortunate figure whose prolonged incarceration has come at a personal cost to his family.

Yasin Malik has already been convicted once on a terror charge, and the Jammu and Kashmir Police's State Investigation Agency has prepared a 737 page chargesheet.

As state BJP spokesperson Danish Bhatt noted in a post on X, "Yasin Malik has nothing to contest in the Sarla Bhat case. It is a foolproof 737-page chargesheet filed by J&K Police SIA. Successive governments failed to deliver justice to Sarla Bhat for 36 years. The BJP government has finally ensured the case moves forward. Justice will be done."

Ultimately, it is for the courts to determine Malik's culpability in the Sarla Bhat case on the basis of the evidence presented by the prosecution. Whatever his claims about his circumstances, his decision to present himself as a victim and divorce his Pakistani wife does not by itself answer the allegations against him, and is unlikely to make the case disappear.

- Ends