Senior Public Prosecutor for the CBI, Monika Kohli, on Friday said eyewitnesses have identified Yasin Malik, chief of the banned outfit Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), as the shooter in the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel in 1990.
“In the special TADA court, a hearing took place on January 18 regarding the killing of the IAF personnel. The CBI had summoned two witnesses. The witnesses narrated how the incident took place. The witnesses identified Yasin Malik and told the court that he was the one to have opened fire (at the IAF personnel),” Kohli told ANI.
“The witness also informed the court that Malik was also injured in the firing and received four bullet injuries,” she added.
She added that the next date of hearing in the matter has been scheduled for February 15 and 16.
On January 25, 1990, four IAF employees, including Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, were killed by JKLF militants.
Malik, who is serving life imprisonment in Tihar Jail in a terror funding case, was charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation before the TADA court in Jammu on August 31, 1990, in connection with the case.
Yasin Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment twice.
Nirmal Khanna, the wife of Squadron Leader Khanna, has been fighting for justice for her late husband.
In March 2020, a TADA court observed that there are “sufficient grounds for drawing presumption that the accused Yasin Malik” and others “prima facie have committed” the offence of killing Indian Air Force (IAF) officer Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna and three others.