New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Thursday upheld the death sentence for Pakistani national Mohammed Arif alias Mohammed Ashfaq while acquitting six others in the December 2000 Red Fort terror attack in which three people were killed.
A division bench headed by Justice R.S. Sodhi held Ashfaq, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant, guilty of waging war against the state in the terror attack on Dec 22, 2000, in which one civilian and two soldiers of the Rajputana Rifles were killed.
The court acquitted six others – Sadakat Ali, Rehmana Yusuf Farooqui, Matloob Alam, Farooq Ahmed Qasid, Babar Mohsin Baghwala and Nazir Ahmed Qasid convicted by the subordinate court – due to lack of evidence.
After a long trial, the high court had reserved its verdict on May 4.
The subordinate court had awarded capital punishment to Ashfaq for waging war against the state and murder. A fine of Rs.435,000 was also slapped on him.
Ashfaq’s Indian wife Rehmana was also convicted for conspiracy and awarded life term. She has been acquitted.
The lower court had awarded life imprisonment to two accused from Jammu and Kashmir – Nazir Ahmed Qasid and his son Farooq Ahmed Qasid. They were also found guilty of waging war against the state and criminal conspiracy.
Two other accused – Babar Mohsin Baghwala and Matloob Alam – were sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment for their complicity in the attack.
It was Srinagar resident Baghwala who had allegedly driven Ashfaq around the capital and showed him the key government and military installations.
During the proceedings, the Delhi Police argued that the Red Fort shootout was a plot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
“The terrorists had carefully selected the army camp inside the fort, a place of national importance and prestige. They deliberately selected it as it would cause widespread indignation and fear in the country,” the judge had said.
The LeT militants sneaked into the 17th century red stone monument, a major tourist spot in the old quarters of Delhi visited by hundreds of Indian and foreign tourists every day, at around 9 p.m. on Dec 22, 2000, and fired indiscriminately on the guards of the 7th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles stationed there, killing Abdullah Thakur and Uma Shankar and a civilian Ashok Kumar.
It was from the Red Fort that the flag of independent India was unfurled by first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the ritual has been followed every year on Aug 15 followed by an address to the nation from its ramparts by the prime minister.