Police and prosecution.

Byline: A.G. Noorani

IN the course of the election campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, Narendra Modi warned the police, especially the Central Bureau of Investigation, that one day, he and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, would also come to power. Since he became prime minister of India in May 2014, Modi has fully lived up to his threat.

This is not to say that other politicians smell of roses. What distinguishes Narendra Modi is the systematic abuse of the investigation agencies in an organised campaign to crush and wipe out the entire opposition. The newspapers are full of reports of cases launched against persons who are in opposition to the Modi regime.

Mohammed Yasin Malik's case alone provides a revealing example of this vendetta. He is leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, a successor to Maqbool Bhat, who was executed by the government of India in 1984 in retaliation for the murder of an Indian diplomat in the UK. Like Bhat, Yasin Malik stood for Kashmir's independence. This ranged him against the pro-Pakistan Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Maulana Umer Farooq.

Like all others, the outbreak of militancy in Kashmir in 1989 provided them with an opportunity to play martyr. Before long, a new outfit appeared on the scene, the Hizbul Mujahideen, which is for Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. Unlike the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the Hizb is an amalgam of parties opposed to India A- vastly more powerful and active than the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The Hizb's long-standing leader is Syed Salahuddin. Like the Turk, the Hizb tolerated no rival. It soon launched a campaign to eliminate the rival cadre and its leaders.

Yasin Malik's case is a revealing example of Modi's political vendetta.

Matters came to such a pass that on April 2, 1993, the Hizbul Mujahideen and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front signed a written agreement with four elaborate points on good behaviour by both sides.

Yasin Malik has a monumental ego but was aware of the realities. He had become a nobody. As Amar Singh Dulat, former head of the Research and Analysis Wing (India's external intelligence agency) remarked: 'Yasin Malik was burnt out by 1993 or 1994.'

Persecution will infuse life in him and make him a martyr. The charges are: a special court 'framed charges against Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Muhammad Yasin Malik in the Rubaiya Sayeed case, 31 years after then union home minister's daughter was abducted by militants'. This...