Delhi:Separatist leader Malik launched a hunger strike inside his cell at Tihar jail in the national capital, prison officials noted. Malik began his strike on Friday morning in Tihar’s Jail No. 7 claiming his case is not being properly investigated. According to reports, top jail officials talked to Malik and tried to persuade him to call off the strike but he refused.

Notably, the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)chief Yasin Malik told a CBI court that he wants to cross-question witnesses in the 1989 Rubiya Sayeed kidnapping case himself else he would go on a hunger strike earlier this month. The case relates to the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayeed, daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, by JKLF on December 8, 1989.

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Yasin Malik is undergoing a life sentence in a terror funding case. He was arrested in 2019 in connection with the 2017 terror-funding case registered by National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Malik informed the court about his request to cross-examine the witnesses himself in the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case and said he would not hesitate to start a hunger strike if the government doesn’t accept his plea. The JKLF chief told the court that he would wait for the government’s response till July 22 after which he would start his indefinite hunger strike, the officials noted.

The said case pertains to the kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, by JKLF on December 8, 1989. She was let go five days later after the kidnapping on December 13 after the then V P Singh government at the Centre agreed to release five JKLF terrorists in exchange for Rubaiya’s freedom. The case, which had since gone cold, was revived after Malik’s arrest by the NIA in 2019.