Killing of 4 IAF personnel: Jammu court ‘closes’ Yasin Malik’s right to cross-examine witness

A special court in Jammu on Monday ‘closed’ banned JKLF chief Yasin Malik’s right to cross-examine a prime witness in a 1990 case related to the killing of four IAF personnel, including squadron leader Ravi Khanna, after he refused to do so through videoconference, a lawyer said. Malik, who is in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after being convicted in a terror-funding case and has been demanding that he be allowed to cross-examine witnesses physically in the Jammu court, was present in court virtually.

He was asked whether he would like to examine VK Sharma, a prime witness in the case. Malik refused and reiterated his stand that he would like to physically question Sharma in court, said Monika Kohli, senior additional advocate general and CBI counsel.

“However, the accused did not do that following which the court closed his right to cross-examine,” Kohli told reporters. Sharma had identified Malik before the examiner-in-chief of the court as well as the CBI as one of the terrorists involved in the killing of four IAF personnel on the outskirts of Srinagar on January 25, 1990.

Kohli informed the court that the Union home ministry had passed an order barring Malik from moving out of Tihar jail for one year from December 22, 2022 because of pending NIA cases against him.

Malik has been chargesheeted in the case along with six others. The charges were framed against the accused in 2020, 20 years after CBI filed the chargesheet before a designated TADA court in Jammu.