The arrest of Yasin Malik

ONE fact is clear about the arrest of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik: it's all about politics.

On March 24, a State police picket at the resort town of Kud stopped a car carrying two passengers from Jammu. Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, a JKLF activist, and his wife Shazia Begum, were asked to establish their identities. A routine search followed. The constables on duty were overwhelmed by what they found: $ 100,000 in currency notes was stitched into improvised pockets in Shazia Begum's clothes. Both were soon in the Udhampur police station, attempting to explain just what they were doing with so much cash.

By the account of their interrogators, Dar and Shazia Begum took little time to come clean. The couple said they had travelled to Kathmandu to receive the cash for Malik from one of his important Pakistan-based associates, Altaf Qadri. The funds, Dar added, were collected during Malik's recent visit to the United States. Informed sources told Frontline that the decision to arrest Malik under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance for receiving terrorist funds was made in Srinagar the next morning, after a meeting between Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and top intelligence officials.

Malik, in the meantime, insisted he did not know Shazia Begum, and that Altaf Qadri had not been to Nepal for "the last seven years". He presumably made this assertion after some contact with Qadri himself. Speaking to the press from Pakistan, Qadri affirmed Malik's position. Despite these denials, Malik was picked up in the middle of a press conference held to proclaim his innocence. Abdullah responded that the decision to invoke POTO was taken only after "irrefutable evidence" had been obtained.

Informed sources said that there was in fact little hard evidence against Malik, at least at present. The police did not discover any substantive evidence, in the form of air tickets or passport entries, to show that Dar or Shazia Begum had travelled to Kathmandu. Although such documentation is not necessary for travel to Nepal, and border controls are easily evaded, it may be needed in a court of law. Additional Director-General of Police Kuldeep Khoda has been despatched to Kathmandu to search for evidence. He had, at the time of writing, not despatched a report to the State government.

As things stand, the sole evidence against Malik is Dar's confessional statement. The Supreme Court judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case made clear that the confessional statements of co-accused had, for obvious reasons, to be used with great care. Unless corroborated by material evidence, the statement is unlikely to stand scrutiny - all of which raised the question why Malik is in jail in the first place.

Malik's lawyers will await the results of Khoda's Nepal investigation with keen interest. It is hard, however, to conclude that the haste with which Malik was arrested had nothing to do with political circumstances. He was the driving force behind the All Parties Hurriyat Conference's January decision to set up an Election Commission, and hold parallel elections administered by the new body. The move put an end to covert dialogue on possible participation in the coming Assembly elections between the Prime Minister's Office and centrist APHC figures such as Abdul Ghani Lone and Srinagar religious leader Umar Farooq. Both had earlier said they would consider participating in the elections subject to the caveat that they would do so to establish their mass legitimacy, not to participate in governance.

Neither New Delhi nor Farooq Abdullah had reason to be impressed with this turn of events. Malik's move had put paid to years of hard work at the PMO, while the decision to set up a parallel election process had obvious implications for the authority of Abdullah's government. Once in jail, Malik sought to turn the pressure on his tormentors. Even as an international campaign to secure his release got under way, Malik startarted a hunger strike. Jammu doctors promptly placed him on intravenous drips and announced that their patient was in no real danger.

If Malik's intention was to provoke a mass response in Srinagar, the enterprise failed. A March 27 strike had some success, and Malik's second-in-command, Javed Mir, led small crowds of JKLF supporters into clashes with the police. These were restricted to their home ground of Maisuma, in downtown Srinagar. And other APHC leaders maintained a studied silence. A week later, Lone chose to address the press in Jammu on the issue. For his pains, he was attacked by a small-time Shiv Sena leader from Pathankot, Kalkaji Maharaj, who timed the assault to make sure that waiting cameras captured the moment. The assault was widely condemned, even by figures hostile to Lone, including Farooq Abdullah.

Malik finally called off his hunger strike on April 4, after the APHC-appointed 'Chief Election Commissioner' Tapan Bose secured a promise from Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitley that the case would be reviewed. If nothing else, public reaction has underlined the severe erosion of Malik's mass base in the Kashmir Valley through the recent years. Abdullah has little reason, however, to rejoice, since few people have supported the evident misuse of State power to silence a political opponent. And if Khoda's visit to Nepal fails to generate some real evidence, the credibility of the State police, and of POTO itself, will be on the line.

The JKLF leader is not the first APHC leader or prominent Kashmir resident to face money-laundering charges. The evidence against him, however, has to be among the weakest so far. Others have not faced punishment for their alleged crimes. Barring a minor miracle, it is profoundly unlikely Malik will either.