New Delhi: A Delhi court last week rejected the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA’s) plea to submit additional evidence against Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DEM) chief Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates in a seven-year-old case against the Kashmir-based all-women, banned outfit. The agency had moved the plea to submit a supplementary charge sheet, months after the arguments in the trial proceedings had concluded.
These new materials included additional details such as recovered emails and SMS from the accused’s phones, reportedly acquired from American authorities.
Rejecting the NIA plea moved 2 August, the Delhi court observed that materials such as social media details allegedly linked to Aasiya Andrabi and her two aides—though freshly obtained from authorities in the United States—could “at best” be additional evidence. The details, the court opined, can not be “essential”, considering months had passed since the conclusion of the trial proceedings.
The NIA had moved the plea before Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh, who heard its arguments but denied the request. Aasiya Andrabi, along with her two aides, had protested the plea, calling it an act similar to the reopening of their case.
Having disposed of the NIA’s plea, the Delhi court has fixed 15 October as the day of final judgment in the Aasiya Andrabi case, initiated in April 2018 when the agency first booked the DEM chief and her two associates on charges of running a terrorist organisation. The NIA accused them of using media platforms to spread “insurrectionary imputations and hateful speeches that endanger the integrity, security and sovereignty of India”, as well.
After the arrests of Aasiya Andrabi and her two DEM associates from Kashmir in July 2018, the NIA filed its first charge sheet in December 2018, followed by a supplementary charge sheet in February 2020. The court framed charges against the women in December 2020, with the final arguments in the trial concluding in February at the beginning of this year.
New materials not essential: Delhi court
“The situations where some material is placed on record after filing of an initial charge sheet are not unknown to law[s]. For instance, during investigation, if some material has been sent for expert analysis and submission of report[s] concerned is taking time, the said material is placed before the court after filing of the charge sheet or during trial,” Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh noted in a 9 September order in the Aasiya Andrabi case.
“However, an important aspect in this regard is that the charge sheet mentions this fact of some other material being expected to be collected and to be filed during the course of trial,” the judge added in his order, a copy of which ThePrint has seen.
“This will keep accused informed and the prosecution on guard to ensure the entire material is placed before the court. It is in reference to such material which prosecution seeks to place on record, but if somehow or other fails to place on record, the powers under Section 311 CrPC can be invoked or should be invoked by court,” the judge further observed. Section 311 CrPC empowers a court to summon any person as a witness or examine any person, or admit any material it finds essential, even after the conclusion of the trial proceedings.
The court rejected the NIA’s argument about the essentiality of the documents from the US authorities. Additionally, it flagged the “unexplained” delay in sending the US authorities’ May-June 2025 letters, including a 14 May letter from Google, to the court. The NIA submitted the letters with the court on 2 August this year, just a couple of days before the initial scheduled day of judgment on 4 August.
Moreover, the court cited a 16 May 2025 letter from the US authorities, informing the NIA of their inability to support a request for records of content of some YouTube and email accounts, saying the insufficient evidence did not meet its legal requirements for sharing the records. With the new materials, the prosecution seemed likely to establish the women’s association with the social media accounts, Judge Singh observed, adding, “Hence, the material, at best, is an additional material on behalf of [the] prosecution.”
The NIA, he judged, likely could not show the materials as “essential for a just decision in the case” or that the agency could not establish charges brought against the accused because the materials were not on record.
The NIA, according to the judge, had also produced nothing, which demonstrated that the agency was seeking more than supplementary information from the US authorities or that it could not communicate any reminders about the materials. “Therefore, in view of the above discussion, the present application stands dismissed,” the judge remarked.
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Aasiya Andrabi’s ‘links with Alam, Geelani’
In its charge sheet, the NIA traced the origin of Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DEM) to religious seminaries and gatherings in the 1980s, with a declared objective to achieve the secession of Kashmir from India. The agency alleged that Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates used social media to spread several inflammatory speeches to inspire more young women to join DEM and support their cause.
“A cursory reading of posts, imputations, and assertions made on Twitter and Facebook posts of accused persons, makes evident that they are running a concerted war against the government, established by law in India,” the NIA said in its charge sheet, submitting the social media posts.
The NIA identified Andrabi as a vocal supporter of another terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Jabbar, and alleged that she worked closely with various separatist leaders, particularly Masarat Alam and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. “The investigation has also revealed that DEM has close ties with All Party Hurriyat Conference (Geelani faction) and has supported its calls for anti-India protests that have become a regular feature after the Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen Burhan Wani was killed, in an encounter with security forces in 2016,” according to its charge sheet.
The charge sheet added that Aasiya Andrabi held annual meetings on her husband Qasim Faktoo’s birthday to curse the government for “incarcerating her husband to suppress the cause of Kashmir’s ‘Azadi’”. Faktoo, alias Mohammad Qasim, is currently serving a life term for the murder of rights activist H.N. Wanchoo, the NIA charge sheet showed.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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