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Red Fort case sentence deferred

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Saturday deferred pronouncement of the quantum of sentence to the Red Fort attack case convicts to this coming Monday.

The Additional Sessions Judge, O.P. Saini, announced the deferment at 4 p.m., saying: "I have not been able to write the judgment due to power breakdown, volume of the job and shortage of staff."

Before announcing the deferment, the Judge had reserved the judgment at 12 noon, after hearing counsel for the accused and the public prosecutor, for 3-30 p.m. When the court sat at 3-30 p.m., the Judge said that it would take another hour to write the judgment.

However, the Judge entered the courtroom at 4 p.m. and announced that he would pronounce the quantum of sentence on Monday (October 31) at 2 p.m.

Earlier, counsel for Pakistani national and member of the Pak-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, Asfaq Ahmed alias Arif, Aman Lekhi, submitted that his client should not be awarded capital punishment as it was not a rarest of rare cases.

By sentencing him to death, the court would be making him a martyr in the neighbouring country, he submitted.

However, the public prosecutor, Bakshi Singh, submitted that the accused should be awarded the severest of punishment as he along with two of his co-accused, Nazir Quasid and Farooq Quasid, had been convicted under Sections 121 (waging war against the Government of India) and 120-B (conspiracy).

The court had this past Monday held Asfaq Ahmed alias Arif, his Indian-origin wife RehmanaYusuf Farooqui and five others guilty in the case in which three Army personnel were killed on December 22, 2000.

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