Martyred Sqn Leader's name to feature on National War Memorial

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has included the name of Squadron Leader Ravi Khanna, who had been martyred in a terrorist attack in Srinagar in 1990, for inscription on the National War Memorial, defence sources said here on Saturday.

Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Yasin Malik is the alleged perpetrator of the terror attack against whom a case is pending in a TADA court in Srinagar. Squadron Leader Khanna and three of his colleagues had been gunned down allegedly by a group of militants led by Malik, in Rawalpora on the outskirts of Srinagar on January 25, 1990.

"The name of Squadron Leader Khanna has been included in the list of martyrs at the National War Memorial. His name will figure amongst other martyrs on the walls of the monument," a senior IAF official told .

The National War Memorial is a monument near India Gate in New Delhi built in honour of the martyrs of the armed forces of India.

The case against Malik was re-opened in September on the basis of an order issued by the Jammu and Kashmir high court.

Squadron Leader Khanna's widow, Nirmal, had told after the reopening of the case that justice should be meted out swiftly to the perpetrators of the terror attack that had taken place a day before the Republic Day of 1990.

"Yasin Malik was declared an activist and made a hero. He has been leading a comfortable life while families of the martyred soldiers have been running from pillar to post," Nirmal had told .

Malik is currently lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail after being arrested by the National Investigation Agency in a case related to financing of terrorist and separatist organisations.

On April 26, a bench of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court had lifted a stay imposed by a single judge in 2007 on the trial of Yasin Malik in the case. The court had also rejected Malik's plea to shift the trial from Jammu to Srinagar.

( With inputs from IANS )