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High Court upholds conviction of terrorists

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed appeals by four Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists against their conviction under the now-defunct Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), saying that there were no infirmities in the trial court judgment.

A special court for POTA cases in 2007 had sentenced the four--Mohammed Afzal, Bilal Ahmed Mir, Ansar Ahmed Dar and Adil Nazir -- each to ten years’ imprisonment under Sections 121-A (conspiring to commit certain offences against the State) and 122 (collecting arms with the intention to waging war against the Government of India) under the India Penal Code (IPC) and seven years of imprisonment under POTA.

The Special Cell of the Delhi police had arrested the four from a private hostel at Kotla Mubarakpur in South Delhi in January 2002 and recovered more than 2 kg of RDX explosive, arms, detonators and about Rs.5 lakh from their possession.

The Special Cell further alleged that the terrorists had received the money through hawala channels.

The charges against them were that they had conspired to carry out terror strikes in the Capital on Republic Day.

The Special Cell had later arrested three more persons in connection with the case. But the POTA Review Committee exonerated two of them while the third person was acquitted by the trial court.

The convicts in their appeal submitted that the police had implicated them in the case and the invocation of POTA against them was uncalled for.

They further submitted that the arms and ammunition and other stuff claimed to have been recovered from them was actually planted on them by the police.

Dismissing the appeals, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice P.K. Bhasin and Justice B.N. Chaturvedi said the prosecution had been able to make out a fool-proof case against them and the slapping of POTA was also commensurate with their offence, and the POTA Review Committee had already decided it.

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