An Indian special court has sentenced Kashmiri resistance leader Asiya Andrabi to life imprisonment, while two of her associates, Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen, were sentenced to 30 years in prison under the infamous Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Additional Sessions Judge Chander Jit Singh of the specially designated National Investigating Agency Court in Delhi handed down the sentences after hearing arguments about the quantum of punishment.
The three were convicted on January 14, 2026, under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including "charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts and waging war against the state.”
Legal experts and Kashmiri leaders have often accused New Delhi of invoking terror charges to criminalise the movement for self-determination as well as crush dissent.
The verdict follows their conviction in January but also adds to a growing list of prosecutions of political figures in India-administered Kashmir under the UAPA, a law long criticised by civil liberties groups for its arbitrariness.
In 2021, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the imprisonment of Andrabi and her two associates on “baseless charges”.
Andrabi, who founded the all-women organisation Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM) in 1987, which was later banned by the Indian government, was arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency in April 2018.
Her husband, Qasim Faktoo, has also been languishing in Indian prisons for over three decades.
The investigation agency had sought life imprisonment for Andrabi, arguing in court that she had “waged war against India” and that the harshest penalty was necessary to deter her from acting against the state.
The case is among a series of high-profile prosecutions of Kashmir leaders in recent years, including that of Yasin Malik, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022 under similar charges.
Kashmir remains a long-standing flashpoint, contested by two nuclear powers since the British vacated the subcontinent.
Since 1989, rebel groups have fought some half a million Indian troops for the territory to become independent or unite with Pakistan, a goal most of the region's Muslim majority population supports.
India has imposed several restrictions in the Muslim-majority region after revoking its constitutional autonomy in 2019.
Rights groups have accused India of using repression to suppress the movement for self-determination.
