The Delhi High Court has asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to submit its response regarding the petitions filed by hardline separatist Aasiya Andrabi and two of her associates, who are contesting their guilty verdict under the stringent UAPA for conspiring against the Indian state and belonging to a banned terrorist outfit.
Andrabi, 62, who founded the all-women separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM) in 1987, along with her close confidantsm Nahida Nasreen (58) and Sofi Fehmeeda (48), were found guilty on January 14 by a special NIA court. The tribunal determined that the three had masterminded a systematic effort to destabilize Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, on March 24, the trial court handed down a life sentence to Andrabi, while Fehmeeda and Nasreen were given 30-year prison terms.
During Monday’s proceedings, a division bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan excused the procedural delay in the filing of their appeals and indicated that it would serve formal notice to the central probe agency. The judges granted the NIA until September 15 to file its reply to the convicts’ plea for suspending their sentences, and scheduled the next hearing for October 6.
Formal charges against Andrabi and her two associates were framed in February 2021, encompassing multiple offenses under the strict anti-terror law as well as the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The allegations against them included plotting to wage war against the country and engaging in conspiracies to execute terror-related activities.
Andrabi was initially taken into custody by the Jammu and Kashmir police in Anantnag in April 2018 for allegedly orchestrating a major demonstration and inciting stone-pelting in the region, following which she was remanded to judicial custody.
