A city court on Saturday sentenced six Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) militants, including three Pakistani nationals, to life imprisonment after convicting them for hatching a plot to kidnap Indian cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. The convicts had also planned to attack the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai and assassinate former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The police had arrested 10 HuJI militants, including six Pakistani nationals in 2002 in connection with the alleged conspiracy. While one of them, Jalaluddin, had managed to escape from police custody and was declared a proclaimed offender, three others — Mohammad Amran, Abdul Majeed and Mohammad Ashraf — had pleaded guilty in 2003 following which the Delhi high court had awarded them eight years’ imprisonment.
Out of the six, who were sentenced on Saturday, the three Pakistanis are — Tariq Mohammad, Arshad Khan and Ashfaq Ahmed. The three Indians to be convicted are Mufti Israr, Ghulam Qadir Bhatt and Ghulam Mohammad Dar.
The court had convict the accused on December 24, 2010, under various sections of the POTA, Indian Penal Code and Foreigners Act.
Awarding the sentence, additional sessions judge Pinki said that terrorism was a unique crime and was a threat to peace anywhere. The court also said that the punishment would send a message that India was never and nor will ever be a haven for terrorists. The court further added that terrorism was insidious as it attacked our values of lives and seeks to destroy the fundamentals to which we are committed. The court also rejected the convicts’ plea for leniency saying that there was no evidence of remorse and there was no possibility of rehabilitation. The convicts had pleaded leniency citing the high court order on their three associates, who had pleaded guilty. The court relied on the e-mail exchanges between the accused and their Pakistan-based handlers to arrive at the verdict. The court had convicted the accused on December 24, 2010.
As per prosecution, the accused, by kidnapping the famous Indian cricketers, wanted to get freed two militants — Nasrullah Langrial and Abdul Rahim, lodged in different jails. Rahim is said to be a close associate of Asif Raza Khan, who in turn was very close to Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released during the Kandahar crisis in 1999.