After the wife of incarcerated Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik wrote a letter to Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Nirmal Khanna, wife of Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, who was allegedly killed by Malik and his accomplices in 1990, urged Rahul Gandhi to avoid actions that could permanently damage his reputation.
Speaking to ANI, Nirmal Khanna advised Rahul Gandhi, “Yaha dil se nahi, dimaagh se kaam lena hai” (This requires reasoning, not emotion)”.
She stated, “Even if she has written a letter to him (Rahul Gandhi), there’s no need to attach undue importance to it… Yasin Malik is where he deserves to be… He might think he can influence something through the opposition – Congress. I urge Rahul Gandhi not to do anything that could irreparably harm his image.”
Meanwhile, Yasin Malik’s wife appealed to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to initiate a debate in Parliament for her husband, claiming he could bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir.
Nirmal Khanna is the widow of Martyr Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna. On January 25, 1990, four IAF personnel, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, were killed by Yasin Malik and his accomplices in Rawalpora.
Malik was charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the TADA court in Jammu on August 31, 1990. He is currently in Tihar Jail, having been arrested in a terror funding case by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
On May 25, 2022, the trial court judge, while sentencing Malik to life imprisonment, noted that there had been no signs of reformation. The judge acknowledged that Malik may have renounced violence in 1994, yet he had never shown remorse for the acts committed prior to that year.
In May 2023, the NIA appealed to the Delhi High Court, challenging the trial court’s life sentence for Yasin Malik and seeking the death penalty in a terror funding case.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the NIA, submitted that Malik had crossed into Pakistan in the 1980s to receive training in arms, with the support of the ISI, which helped him become the head of the JKLF. Malik is held responsible for the deaths of four IAF personnel and the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed. (ANI)
