The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday alleged before the Delhi High Court that separatist leader Yasin Malik was in contact with the top leadership of Pakistan, including its prime minister and president, and used these links to propagate the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India, The Hindu reported.

The central agency made the remarks in a rejoinder before a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja while seeking to enhance Malik’s life term in a terror funding case to the death penalty.

The bench listed the case for hearing on July 21. It also told Malik, who virtually appeared for the proceedings from Tihar jail, that a copy of the rejoinder would be supplied to him through the jail authorities.

In May 2022, a trial court had sentenced the separatist leader to life imprisonment in the terror funding case.

Malik, along with other separatist leaders and groups, had been accused of allegedly acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations for raising, receiving and collecting funds domestically and abroad.

He was found guilty of several offences under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Indian Penal Code.

In an earlier reply to the appeal for the death penalty filed by the central agency, Malik said that he spent nearly three decades as a key figure in a state-sanctioned “backchannel” mechanism, working with a succession of prime ministers and intelligence chiefs to foster peace in Jammu and Kashmir.

However, the NIA told the court that Malik’s claim of having a “working relationship” with successive Indian governments was only aimed at garnering public sympathy and had no connection with his crime, Live Law reporrted.

The agency in its rejoinder said that Malik had been in contact with the “top leadership of Pakistan, including the prime minister, the president, senators of the Pakistani Senate, and the chief ministers of all provinces, and was using such contacts to propagate narratives against India and to further the secessionist agenda in Jammu & Kashmir”, The Indian Express reported.

The rejoinder noted that the separatist leader had also “admitted that he was the commander-in-chief of JKLF [Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front]”, The Hindu reported.

The mere mention of names of senior politicians and senior bureaucrats does not negate the fact that Malik “had linkages with militant Hafiz Saeed and other militants”, the rejoinder added.

The NIA also said that the separatist leader has admitted to having connections with Sayeed Salauddin, who is chief of the militant group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.