Jaipur court gives life sentence to 12 for conspiracy to carry out acts of terror

It’s perhaps for the first time that a court has sentenced 12 persons who it ruled were involved in conspiracy and were identified as terrorists but were not involved in any destruction to jail.

A Jaipur court on Tuesday sentenced 12 youth who were all studying for either a degree in medicine or engineering after seven years of trial, to life imprisonment.

Jaipur session court judge Umashankar Vyas in his 257 page judgement found the youth guilty of conspiracy in a plan by Indian Mujahideen to plant bombs in Jaipur’s Moti Doongari, World Trade Park and in Bharatpur.

The court dismissed arguments advanced by the defendants’ advocates that proper procedures for the arrests of the youth were not followed and that no explosives were found in their possession. The court observed that the investigating agencies had enough evidence to prove that the accused were hell-bent on violence and wanted to create terror by planting bombs and other explosives.

The court also levied a fine of Rs 91 lakh on the 12 convicts collectively.

Judge Vyas observed that it was for the first time that a dozen persons were being convicted for merely conspiring to carry out terror attacks using explosives, who were apprehended before they could do any damage. But since they were identified as terrorists and were involved in a conspiracy to cause mass-scale destruction, they were given life imprisonment.

Judge Vyas found that the conspirators had worked on a plan to wage a war against the nation and had planned large-scale use of explosives at several places.

Mohammed Ammar Yasser, Mohammed Sajjad, Mohammed Aqib, Mohammed Umar, Abdul Wahid Ghauri, Mohammed Waqar, Abdul Majid, Mohammed Maruf, Waqar Azhar, Barkat Ali, Md Saqib Ansari and Ashraf Ali Khan were sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 121 of the IPC. Apart from this, they were found guilty under Sections 121A, 122, 465, 468, 471 and 120B.

According to public prosecutor Liaquat Ali, the convicts were also found guilty under various provisions of the Explosive Substance Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Ali said that the convicted persons had formed a sleeper cell to conduct terrorist activities in busy areas of Jaipur like Moti Doongari, Ganesh temple, Birla Mandir, World Trade Park, and in Bharatpur. He said there were 20 suspects in the case, but only 13 could be arrested.

The chargesheet said that Delhi Police’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had on March 22, 2014 arrested one Ziaur Rahman in Delhi. During interrogation, he disclosed about the Rajasthan module and the conspiracy to create terror by planting of bombs. He named Mohammed Marruf, Md Waqar alias Hanif and Saqib from Jodhpur who were all engineering students and had received training to make bombs.

The Delhi ATS in association with Rajasthan’s ATS and Special Operation Group (SOG) then swung into action and arrested 13 persons in Jodhpur, Jaipur, Sikar and also Gaya. The police recovered explosives to prepare bombs from these sentenced youths.

The police submitted a challan in the court against the 13 accused on September 17, 2014.

Jodhpur was the epicentre of the Indian Mujahideen’s activities and the sentenced youths used to assemble there to plan their activities. Those who were trained in making bombs spent 15 days in Mumbai to learn how bombs were made. The sleeper cell formation idea was also born in Jodhpur.

The conspirators were in the age group of 18 to 30 and were studying medicine or engineering and their parents had no clue about their connections with the Indian Mujahideen. But they came in contact with the terrorists who brainwashed them and convinced them to join them.

Investigation officer Anant Kumar, who is now posted as an additional SP in Udaipur, said the entire investigation process was a tiring and exhaustive process. Kumar said there was no direct evidence against the sentenced youth. But the electronic gadgets seized from them led to the discovery of their involvement in large-scale espionage activities.

Data retrieved from their electronic gadgets like computer and mobile phones revealed that explosives were bought at Bharatpur, Jaiapur, Jodhpur, Agra and Pali.

“We also probed their chats with foreigners. All the minute details were obtained and in all, over 170 pieces of evidence collected helped the investigating team to prepare a charge sheet of 5550 pages and it took us 180 days to do it,” said Anant Kumar.

Kumar said the arrest of Ziaur Rahman gave them a major tip-off and it was found that the accused were hand in glove with Mujahideen leader Yasin Bhatkal. This led to the arrest of Marruf alias Ibrahim and then the arrest of others became easy.

The defendants’ advocates Deepak Chauhan, Snehdeep Choudhry, Amiruddin and Amar Chand Pareek pleaded that there was not enough evidence against the accused that they were involved in the conspiracy. They said that the investigating agency had merely gone by the interrogation of Ziaur Rahman who was arrested from Delhi and gave a few names of the accused who were associated with the Indian Mujahideen. The defendants pleaded that merely having a connection with Indian Mujahideen cannot be construed as their direct involvement in the conspiracy.

But the prosecution submitted that the investigating agency recovered pen drives, mobiles, call details and also evidences of the purchase of the explosives. This evidence was enough to prove that the accused were involved directly in the conspiracy to cause terror by targeting crowded areas, it said.