Asiya Andrabi (extreme right) and her three young students. (TOI file photo)
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday sentenced Kashmiri separatist and Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi to life imprisonment in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case.Her two associates, Fehmeeda and Nasreen, were sentenced to 30 years in prison in the same case.On January 14, Andrabi, Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen were convicted under Sections 20, 38 and 39 of the UAPA.The three were also convicted under IPC sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) and 121A (conspiracy to commit offences against the State), reported PTI.
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Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh pronounced the sentence after hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence.The National Investigation Agency, following the conviction, sought life imprisonment for Andrabi, saying she had waged war against India and that “a stern message was required to be sent that conspiring against the State would invite the harshest penalty.”According to her interrogation report accessed by The Times of India, Andrabi told investigators she was in regular touch with former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and often spoke to his foreign policy adviser Sartaz Aziz. The report said Andrabi also spoke about her contacts with officials at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, former ISI chief Hamid Gul, and UN-designated global terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin in connection with discussions on Kashmir. According to the report, Andrabi told the NIA that she had written to Nawaz Sharif in 2014, saying “Pakistan is not doing anything for Kashmir”. She said Sharif replied, “We are doing our best”. It also said that after her mother’s death on November 28, 2015, Sharif sent her a condolence letter by post. During meetings at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi in 2014 with Sartaz Aziz, then Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit and deputy high commissioner Syed Haidar Shah, Andrabi allegedly told them that “Pakistan was taking Kashmir issue casually”. She was told by Pakistani officials that a Kashmir Committee in Pakistan was handling the matter, the report said. The report further said Andrabi remained in regular contact with Hafiz Saeed and asked him to “pressure Pakistan government”. She also spoke to him around the time of the death of his wife, Umi Talha, and later after the death of his nephew Abdul Rehman Makki. According to the interrogation report, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin also regularly called Andrabi, and she asked him to persuade the Pakistan government to raise the Kashmir issue at the United Nations.
