JKLF chief Yasin Malik tells Srinagar court he will no longer contest proceedings in the 1990 Sarla Bhat murder case
Separatist leader and jailed chief of the banned terror outfit, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Yasin Malik has offered himself for the gallows in the 1990 Sarla Bhat murder case, declaring he will not defend the trial, even as he announced his divorce from his Pakistani wife Mushaal Hussein Mullick.
Lodged in Tihar since 2019, Malik filed a 25-page written statement before the Additional Sessions Court, Srinagar, on Wednesday through his lawyer Abu Adil Pandit. The court has listed the matter for the next hearing on September 19.
In the affidavit, Malik stated that he no longer wishes to challenge the proceedings in the case of Kashmiri Pandit nurse Sarla Bhat’s murder. He clarified that his decision not to contest the trial should not be treated as an admission of guilt or acceptance of the allegations.
“Considering my personal circumstances and after deep reflection, I have decided not to contest the trial proceedings further… I request for capital punishment,” the statement reads. He claimed he has been falsely implicated due to political circumstances and performed Istikhara before taking the decision.
Malik denied any role in the killing. He asserted that in April 1990 he was critically injured, unconscious, and undergoing medical treatment after being wounded on April 8, making it impossible for him to have ordered the crime. He described Sarla Bhat as an innocent civilian.
In the same document, Malik announced his decision to end his 16-year marriage to Mushaal Hussein Mullick, a Pakistani artist and former special advisor on human rights in Pakistan’s caretaker government. The couple married in 2009 and have a 13-year-old daughter, Raziya Sultana. Malik wrote that he has not been allowed to speak to his wife or see her on video call for the past eight years.
Addressing Mushaal, he said: “You are twenty years younger than me, and I do not want you to spend the rest of your life carrying the burden of my circumstances or living as a widow. I therefore request you to find the courage to begin a new chapter of your life with dignity and hope… That, before I will be hanged, I have taken the decision to separate you from the bond of our nikah.”
The 1990 case involves the abduction, torture, and killing of 27-year-old Sarla Bhat, a nurse at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar. Her body was found on April 19, 1990, in Omer Colony, Malbagh, with a note branding her an informer. The State Investigation Agency (SIA) filed a 737-page chargesheet on June 29, 2026, naming Malik as the then JKLF chief commander and alleged mastermind, along with four others—three of whom are deceased and one absconding. The SIA described the killing as part of a larger terrorist conspiracy targeting Kashmiri Pandits.
Malik is already serving life sentences in a terror-funding case convicted in 2022, during which he also declined to contest charges. The latest development adds another layer to the long-pending cases against him, including the 1989 Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping and a 1990 attack on Indian Air Force personnel.The court will take up the matter on September 19. Malik’s lawyer has previously described the chargesheet as lacking evidence and an attempt to use his name for headlines.
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