A special court of the National Investigation Agency in Delhi on Tuesday sentenced separatist leader Aasiya Andrabi to life imprisonment in connection with a 2018 Kashmir secession conspiracy case, while her associates Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen were awarded 30 years in jail along with fines.
The three women, linked to the banned organisation Dukhtaran-e-Millat, were arrested by the NIA in July 2018 after the agency registered a suo moto case in April the same year related to a secession conspiracy. The arrests were made in the run-up to the scrapping of the J&K’s special status in 2019.
Andrabi, 63, a prominent separatist leader from Kashmir, is the founder and chairperson of Dukhtaran-e-Millat, an organisation initially formed as a socio-religious reform group, later came to be associated with pro-Pakistan and separatist ideology and was banned by the Government of India in 2018 and was declared a terrorist organisation.
Born in 1963 in Srinagar in an educated family, Andrabi completed her graduation in Home Science and later pursued Islamic studies, which reportedly influenced her ideological and political outlook. She founded Dukhtaran-e-Millat in the late 1980s, and the group gained prominence in the early 1990s during its campaign advocating the veil in Kashmir.
Andrabi married Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, also known as Mohammad Qasim, a militant commander associated with Hizbul Mujahideen, who is serving life imprisonment in connection with the killing of Kashmiri Pandit rights activist Hriday Nath Wanchoo.
She was first arrested in 1993 and subsequently detained multiple times under the Public Safety Act before her arrest by the NIA in 2018. Authorities had attached Andrabi’s Srinagar residence in 2019 as part of a broader crackdown on separatist networks.
In January 2026, a Delhi court convicted Andrabi, Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code related to conspiracy, promoting enmity, and unlawful activities.
Andrabi was sentenced by the Court concurrently under various sections of IPC and UA(P) Act to the maximum sentence of Life Imprisonment and a total fine of Rs. 8 lakh.
She is additionally named in 32 other FIRs registered at various police stations in Jammu & Kashmir
Following the arrests of its leadership and the crackdown on separatist organisations by security agencies after 2019, Dukhtaran-e-Millat like other separatist groups has largely become defunct.
