LeT terror plot: 13 sentenced to five years
This is the second case in the country in which provisions of the UAPA were invoked.
Bengaluru: The Special National Investigation (NIA) Court on Friday sentenced the 13 men, who it had convicted a day before in the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami (HuJI) terror conspiracy to eliminate the Mysuru MP Pratap Sinha and some other prominent Right wing leaders and police officers with five years of rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs 31,000 each.
The special court judge Muralidhar Pai, while sentencing the 13 youths to five years in prison under various provisions in the IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, said the sentences would run concurrently and that the convicts would be “entitled for set off under Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure against the term of imprisonment”. This would mean that the youths, who were arrested in 2012, will be in prison for one-and-a-half years, since they have already spent four years in prison.
This is the second case in the country in which provisions of the UAPA were invoked and the accused had pleaded guilty after Ajmal Kasab’s case in the 26/11 trial. ”This is the first case in which the court had accepted the application of the accused. In Kasab’s case the court had gone ahead with the trial,” said a senior advocate. Of the accused, Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, Abdul Hakeem Jamadar, Mohammed Akram and Ubedullah Bahadur have also been convicted under Section 3 of the Arms Act for possession of unlicensed pistols.
Public Prosecutor for the NIA Arjun Ambalapatta told this newspaper has it was a very positive move on the part of the accused to plead guilty and “repent for the wrong they had done. It also showed their willingness to reconnect with the society,” he added.
The 13 youths convicted by the NIA court are Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, (27), Abdul Hakeem Jamadar (30), Riyaz Ahmed Byahatti, (32), Mohammad Akram (27), Ubedullah Bahadur (28), Waheed Hussain (31), Dr Zafar Iqbal Sholapur (31), Mohammad Sadiq Lashkar (33), Mehboob Bagalkote (32), Obaid-ur-Rehman (26), Dr Nayeem Siddique (32), Dr Imran Ahmed (30) and Syed Tanzeem Ahmed (27).