By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: A special MCOCA court on Thursday convicted twelve accused and acquitted eight in a decade old Aurangabad arms haul case. The convicted include 26/11 Mumbai attack accused Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal.
However, none of the accused has been found guilty of offences under stringent sections of MCOCA. The case of two accused is separated while eight other accused are acquitted from the case.
Court convicted seven under sections of UAPA while other five are found guilty under Explosive Substance Act and Arms Act.
The names of the convicted are Mohammed Amer Shaikh, Muhammad Muzaffar, Mustaq Ahmed, Javed Ahmed, Afzal Khan, Dr Muhammad Sharif, Bilala Ahmed, Sued Aakef, Afroz Khan, Faisal Shaikh, Muhammad Aslam and Zabiuddin Ansari.
The eight who have been set free by the court are Riyaz Ahmad, Abdul Azeem, Imran Khatib, Vaqar Ahmad, Abdus Samad, Zubair Ahmad, Aqueel Momin and Feeroz Deshmukh.
The court separated case of two-Abdul Naeem who allegedly escaped from police custody in 2014 and Mustafa Syed-who had earlier agreed for becoming a prosecution witness but later retracted alleging he was pressurized by ATS.
While convicting the accused, special judge Shrikant Anekar observed that this was a larger conspiracy to strike terror and the accused were calling it ‘jihad’. ANI reports that the court also said that there was a conspiracy after the 2002 Gujarat riots to eliminate then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and VHP’s Pravin Togadia.
On May 8, 2006, team of ATS had chased a Tata Sumo and an Indica car on Chandwad-Manmad highway near Aurangabad and arrested three suspects and seized 30 kg RDX, 10 AK-47 assault rifles and 3,200 bullets from their possession. During the investigation the ATS arrested 22 youths from Aurangabad, Beed and Hyderabad.
The Court will hear argument from both the sides on quantum of punishment to the convicts.