On Monday, August 11, 2025, the Delhi High Court asked separatist leader Yasin Malik to respond to the National Investigation Agency’s plea seeking a death penalty for him in a terror funding case. A bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Shalinder Kaur gave Malik four weeks to submit his reply and scheduled the next hearing for November 10.
Malik, the chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail after being convicted in May 2022 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code. The trial court had sentenced him to life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to the charges.
The NIA has appealed against the sentence, arguing that pleading guilty should not protect a terrorist from the death penalty. Malik, who had earlier expressed his intention to argue the case himself, was supposed to appear virtually from jail on Monday but was not produced. The court has now directed that he be produced virtually on November 10 for the hearing.
