J&K 1990 IAF officers killing case: Absence of accused leads to deferment of identification by eye-witness

A local court Saturday deferred the identification by an eye-witness of six accused including JKLF chief Mohd Yasin Malik in connection with the killing of four Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel in a terrorist attack in the summer capital Srinagar in 1990.

The identification was deferred due to non-availability of some of the accused in the court here even as one of the two eye-witnesses who turned up for cross-examination expressed readiness to identify them, CBI chief prosecutor Monika Kohli said.

Malik, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail, was present through video conferencing during the hearing of the much publicised case.

“Two eye-witnesses turned up for cross-examination and one of them expressed willingness to identify the accused. Since some of the accused were not present in the court, the identification was deferred till next hearing,” Kohli, who is also senior additional advocate general, told PTI.

She said the cross-examination of the other eye-witness was completed but he expressed his inability to identify the accused.

The special TADA court has already framed charges separately against the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief and several others in this case, as well as another related to the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, by his group in 1989.

While the charges were framed against Malik and six others on March 16, 2020 in the killing of four IAF personnel, the court has framed the charges against Malik and nine others in the 1989 abduction case of Rubaiya on January 11 last year.

Malik was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in April 2019 in connection with a terror funding case, a month after his group was banned by the central government.