ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani wife of a prominent Kashmiri leader in Indian-administered side of the Himalayan territory wrote Wednesday to opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, urging him to initiate a parliamentary debate on her husband’s incarceration following his hunger strike at the beginning of this month.
Mushaal Hussein Mullick, former assistant on human rights and women’s empowerment in Pakistan’s last caretaker administration, is married to Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), who, along with other activists, was incarcerated after India revoked Kashmir’s special constitutional status in August 2019.
She said the Indian authorities had filed a case against him on the basis of a “three-decades-old sedition case” in which they were demanding death sentence for him.
The letter noted this was despite the fact that her husband had long given up arms to fight for freedom struggle, following the path of non-violence which was highlighted by several high-profile Indian officials and journalists themselves.
“I request you to bring to use your high moral and political influence in the Parliament and to initiate a debate in the case of Yasin Malik, who could become an instrument for bringing organic and not cosmetic peace back to the Jammu & Kashmir — paradise on earth,” she wrote.
Mullick said her husband “stood by his end of the bargain,” though the same thing “cannot be said for the Indian state” that did not pay attention to his pleas and “victimized” him under the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Her letter to the Indian opposition leader follows the recent elections in Indian-administered Kashmir in which Gandhi’s allies displayed a good performance while the BJP could not make any impressive electoral gains.
The government in New Delhi has, however, used the polls to suggest that the situation in Kashmir is gradually improving, though the large number of the people of the area have long opposed the Indian rule.