Five convicted for waging war against India

New Delhi: Five terrorists, including two brothers, belonging to banned outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), were on Monday convicted by a Delhi court for waging war against the country and being involved in terror activities.

The court is likely to pronounce the quantum of sentence against the five on January 6.

Additional Session Judge RK Gauba relied on the confessional statements of the accused, besides noting that they "hobnobbed" with each other, and two of them went to Pakistan and stayed illegally to get training for the purpose.

The court pronounced Noor Mohammad Tantre, Pervaiz Ahmed Mir, Faroz Ahmed Bhat and brothers Atiq-uz-Zama and Raees-uz-Zama, guilty also under stringent anti-terror law Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

"The circumstances are of a conclusive and definite nature and tend to point towards the guilt of each of the five accused, consistent only with hypothesis of the guilt totally excluding the possibility of their innocence," the court said.

The court also convicted them under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) relating to waging war against the country and under the Explosives Substance Act for possessing huge quantity of arms and ammunition, including grenade- launchers.

It said the confessions recorded under the POTA by the accused were "admissible and relevant" not only against the makers of such statements but also against the other accused.

"The facts and circumstances that have been proved cogently establish on record the existence of a criminal conspiracy, unmistakebly showing each of the accused persons to be a member thereof," ASJ Gauba said.

Convicts Raees and Atiq, who hail from Sikandrabad in Uttar Pradesh, are brothers of Habibullah, who was gunned down by Delhi Police along with Pakistani national Zahoor in an encounter on August 30, 2003, in the Millennium Park near Nizamuddin Bridge in New Delhi.

All the five convicts were arrested by the Delhi Police on August 30-31, 2003, following the encounter.

Besides the arms and ammunition, the police also claimed to have recovered a sum of Rs 19.20 lakh from prime accused Tantray who was held from Sadar Bazar in new Delhi.

During the arguments, defence counsel MS Khan pointed to several "inconsistencies" in prosecution charges including that the police could not produce any public witness to the encounter held at the Millenium Park.

But the court did not find substance in his contention and convicted the five accused.