Aasiya Andrabi: How India's terror laws turned dissent into life sentences
A 64-year-old Kashmiri grandmother was sentenced to life imprisonment under India's anti-terror laws earlier this week, despite the court failing to prove she committed, funded, or carried out any acts of violence, Middle East Eye can reveal.
On Tuesday, an Indian special court handed down three life sentences against Aasiya Andrabi under various provisions of the anti-terror law and the Indian Penal Code. Two of her associates, Sofi Fahmeeda, 36, and Nahida Nasreen, 61, received 30 years each.
The news of her sentencing trickled through Indian media, where the verdict was largely framed as a confirmation of guilt.
But beyond the surface, much of the media refused to engage with court documents or look beyond the predictable mudslinging that erupted after neighbouring Pakistan condemned the decision.
In fact, court documents reviewed by Middle East Eye show that despite prosecutors failing to prove she conspired to wage war, fund terrorism, or incite violence, the court still decided to impose the maximum sentence - even after acquitting her of those charges.
Born in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, in 1962, Andrabi is the latest Kashmiri resistance figure to be prosecuted by Indian authorities over her beliefs and associations.
Her activism can be traced back to 1985 when she founded the first darsgah (women's religious learning centre) in Srinagar, which evolved into a movement focused on Islamic education, women's rights, and resistance to what it described as the commodification of Kashmiri women.
In 1987, the group adopted the name Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM), taken from one of their earlier pamphlets addressed to young Kashmiri women.
From the outset, there was an independent, rebellious streak to the group, one that refused to accept the prevailing status quo.
"We were informed that being educated equated to adopting western standards. I came to the realisation that we must delineate what it signifies to be an educated Muslim woman," Andrabi said in an earlier interview with an online magazine.
In her book Muslim Women, Agency and Resistance Politics: The Case of Kashmir, Inshah Malik writes that the group was an Islamic movement "interested in re-educating women on the rights granted to them by Islam" and that, though often framed as either "conservative" or "feminist", it did not fit neatly into either category.
"The political goal of Dokhtaran is to create a pious political woman who can question and critique the political order," Malik writes. "Women can change their situation of oppression if they know their rights in Islam".
The group called for the face veil and gender segregation, while also pushing for greater space for women in public life. At the same time, it maintained that Kashmir was an "unfinished agenda" of the partition of the Indian subcontinent.
Since 1947, Jammu and Kashmir has been divided between India, Pakistan, and, later, a small section controlled by China. For many Kashmiri Muslims, India's rule is seen as illegitimate.
They argue that, under the logic of partition, Kashmir, as a Muslim-majority region, should either have acceded to Pakistan or been granted the right to self-determination.
Andrabi openly called for armed resistance against India to achieve that end.
In other words, the group was not only engaged in religious activity but also functioned as both a political and ideological intervention.
This extended to attempts to protect women in Kashmir from what the group described as organised exploitation by the state or the Indian army, as well as protests against the commodification of women in advertising and entertainment.
While Andrabi became known as the "Iron Lady" in Kashmir for her unwavering stance on India’s presence in the region, it was her activism on women's issues - particularly her protest against sexual exploitation cases involving the political class, bureaucracy, and the army in 2006 - that brought her wider acclaim in the valley.
In India, however, it was her more acerbic statements that drew attention.
Sections of the media and political establishment portrayed her as a destabilising force, often likening her "social conservatism" to that of the Taliban or al-Qaeda.
During the height of the US invasion of Iraq in 2007, Andrabi said she would be proud if her son killed George W Bush - a remark widely cited to reinforce that image.
A history of detention
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as India intensified its military presence in Kashmir in response to an armed insurgency - supported in part by Pakistan - the state relied on laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Public Safety Act (PSA), which allow for sweeping powers, including detention without trial.
Andrabi, like thousands of other Kashmiris, was repeatedly detained under the PSA, at times for up to two years without charge.
In 2011, Amnesty International noted that she had been detained under the PSA on multiple occasions, describing the legislation as a "lawless law".
According to her family, Andrabi has spent a cumulative 15 years in jail over the past three decades.
Her husband, Dr Muhammad Qasim, was arrested in 1993 and later convicted of leading the Jamiatul Mujahideen, a proscribed organisation in India. He has remained in prison for more than 30 years.
In 2018, Andrabi and her co-accused were arrested again, this time under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), India's primary anti-terror law.
A year later, authorities confiscated the family's ancestral home, alleging it had been used for "terror activities".
For the past eight years, Andrabi and her co-accused have been held in Tihar Jail, more than 800km from Kashmir. The prison is known for overcrowding, poor healthcare, and allegations of abuse.
Despite a court order permitting the couple to communicate over the phone twice a month, the jail authorities have not allowed allowed Andrabi to speak to her husband. The duo haven't seen each other since 2016.
What were the charges?
According to court documents, the case formally began in 2021. The prosecution accused Andrabi and her associates of waging war against the Government of India (Section 121 IPC), raising funds for terrorist acts (Section 17 UAPA), and being members of a terrorist organisation (Section 20 UAPA).
These were the most serious charges and carried life sentences.
However, in a 290-page judgment in January, judge Chander Jit Singh found that the prosecution had failed to prove these allegations, leading to acquittals on all three counts.
The court concluded that there was no evidence of any actual incident involving the use of force or arms by the accused, or at their instance.
While the court noted that Andrabi and her associates had endorsed violence carried out by others, it ruled that such views did not meet the legal threshold for waging war.
Despite interviewing 53 witnesses and examining extensive digital and financial evidence, the prosecution failed to demonstrate any instance of an actual terrorist act involving the group.
"There are evidences [sic] in the form of videos or interviews or posts where stone pelting or use of gun [sic] towards secessionist approach of Kashmir has been approved or endorsed and encouraged, but no violent incidence in particular, pursuant to such endorsement or encouragement, has been brought on record," the court said.
Following the acquittal of the most serious charges, the court convicted her on a range of lesser offences.
These included criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B IPC), promoting enmity (Section 153A), statements undermining national unity (Section 153B), public mischief (Section 505), membership and support of a terrorist organisation (Sections 38 and 39 UAPA), conspiracy to wage war (Section 121A IPC), and preparation for a terrorist act (Section 18 UAPA).
Although extensive, these convictions fall under less severe provisions than those for which she had already been acquitted.
Crucially, they relied largely on her public statements, interviews, and social media activity.
In effect, where the state failed to prove acts of violence, it shifted the legal basis to speech, association, and perceived intent.
Section 18 of the UAPA, for instance, allows prosecution not for acts of violence, but for the perceived intention to commit them. In Andrabi's case, no concrete plans for an attack were ever established.
'A miscarriage of justice'
Andrabi's lawyers described the sentencing as "a miscarriage of justice", arguing that the punishment was disproportionate given the acquittals on the most serious charges.
"What remained were convictions for speech, association, and belief - not action," they said.
They urged the court to consider the eight years already spent in detention as sufficient punishment.
The court, however, appeared to take a different view. It cited Andrabi's refusal to show remorse and even compared her to Ajmal Kasab, one of the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
It also suggested that leniency might have been appropriate had the women been "uneducated", a remark that raises troubling questions about the court's reasoning.
Andrabi is the second Kashmiri figure in recent years to receive a life sentence under such charges, following Yasin Malik in 2022.
But beyond these high-profile cases, hundreds of Kashmiris remain imprisoned - activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens alike - often on the basis of speech or minimal association.
Human rights groups have long argued that the UAPA is overly broad and used to criminalise dissent.
What makes Andrabi's case particularly significant is that the court explicitly acknowledged the absence of violence, yet imposed the maximum penalty.
In doing so, it signals a shift - from punishing acts of violence to pre-emptively punishing dissent itself.
A warning beyond Kashmir
For decades, Indian-controlled Kashmir has been governed through extraordinary legal and security measures: prolonged detentions, sweeping military powers, and limited accountability.
Indian authorities have mowed down Kashmiris in their numbers and executed others - like Afzal Guru - convicted under dubious circumstances for the 2001 attack on India's parliament.
In 2019, New Delhi placed the valley under a communication lockdown and revoked Article 370 and Article 35A from the Indian Constitution, effectively ending the region’s semi-autonomous status and the protection of local land from outsider purchases.
The annexation and conversion of the state into a union territory meant that Indians could become legal residents in the valley.
Kashmiri scholars have repeatedly warned that the move would facilitate India’s project to conduct demographic change.
Over the past few years alone, more than 80,000 Indians have received residency certificates to live in Kashmir.
As part of an attempt to portray Kashmir as "normal" and open to tourism and investment, the government has tried to suffocate civil society and activism.
It has also scrubbed news articles and reports from news websites to create a hostile and intimidating environment for journalism to function.
Concurrent with this effort has been an attempt to change school and university curricula. But such measures are no longer confined to the region.
Across India, critics point to increasing restrictions on dissent, the criminalisation of protest, and the narrowing of democratic space.
Andrabi's sentencing may therefore represent not an exception, but rather a precedent.
If life imprisonment can be imposed for speech in Kashmir today, it is unlikely to remain confined there tomorrow.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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