Jailed Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik has told the Delhi High Court, through an affidavit submitted in a sealed cover, that successive governments at the Centre encouraged him to keep the peace process alive in Jammu and Kashmir, claiming he was engaged directly by seven former Prime Ministers, as well as by the RSS leadership and two Shankaracharyas.

Malik, who has been lodged in Tihar Jail since 2019, filed the affidavit in response to the NIA’s plea seeking enhancement of his life sentence to the death penalty in a 2016 terror funding case.

Malik is learnt to have accused the state of attempting to erase the history of its engagement with him, citing meetings with PMs, political leaders, intelligence officials, RSS leaders and journalists. He said that after his arrest in 1990, he was actively engaged by successive dispensations led by then PMs V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P V Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda, I K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

According to him, governments not only gave him space domestically to speak on the Kashmir issue but also persuaded him to represent the cause on international platforms.

He recounted that his engagement with the state began in the early 1990s, when he was taken from jail to a Delhi bungalow to meet a Union minister and Intelligence Bureau officials, who, on instructions from then PM P V Narasimha Rao, urged him to give up arms.

Malik said he declared in 1994 that he would pursue a non-violent democratic struggle, after which he was released from jail and granted bail in 32 TADA cases under a single bail order.

He maintained that successive governments, including Narendra Modi’s first term, honoured the promise of not reviving those cases until the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

Malik further claimed that Vajpayee and then Home Minister L K Advani issued him a passport in 2001, allowing him to travel with valid visas to countries including the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where he spoke about resolving the Kashmir issue.

He said he held a marathon five-hour meeting with RSS leaders at IIC in Delhi in 2011, facilitated by a think-tank, and was also visited multiple times at his Srinagar home by two Shankaracharyas.

He has also claimed to have played a crucial role in persuading the Opposition to support the 2000 Ramzan ceasefire announced by Vajpayee, saying he held discussions with leaders including Manmohan Singh, Najma Heptulla, Sonia Gandhi, V P Singh, I K Gujral, A B Bardhan and Prakash Karat. Denying involvement in terror funding, Malik is learnt to have said that the NIA had failed to produce evidence against him and that he was being made a scapegoat.