A city sessions court in Ahmedabad acquitted two clerics from Kashmir who had been accused of spreading terrorism in a 2006 case, according to a report in The Indian Express.
The duo were accused of having received training from Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to carry out “jihadi attacks” in response to the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
Presided over by additional sessions judge Prashant Sheth, the court reached this decision after taking into account witness statements that did not corroborate the prosecution’s allegations.
The court found no evidence that these two clerics, in conjunction with others, were planning militant jihadi attacks or plotting a proxy war on behalf of the banned organizations LeT and SIMI.
The two clerics, Bilal Ahmed (also known as Bilal Kashmiri), arrested in 2021, and Saiyed Zabiuddin, arrested in 2012, both are from Baramulla.
They were facing charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 121A (conspiracy to commit offenses against the state), 124 (assaulting president, governor, etc., with intent to compel or restrain the exercise of lawful power), and provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. These charges stemmed from a complaint filed by Bharat Patel, who was the sub-inspector of the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) back in 2006.
Furthermore, the court noted procedural irregularities, such as the absence of prior information in the station diary and the failure to record a panch witness during Zabiuddin’s arrest in New Delhi when he was already in judicial custody for another offense.
The DCB filed two chargesheets, one in 2013 and another in 2021, against a total of 23 accused, including a juvenile. These allegations included affiliations with banned organizations SIMI and LeT, with claims that they were planning to cause chaos and harm “national dignitaries in Gujarat.”
In previous judgments, two accused individuals were acquitted by a sessions court in March 2021, and another in April 2022.
The initial FIR at the DCB police station, based on intelligence sources, asserted that “Muslim youths from Kashmir and other states were involved in militancy activities, with contacts and allies active in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in Gujarat.”
The FIR also indicated that Imran Kashmiri and Bashir Kashmiri, who were both LeT operatives, were sent to Kashmir, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to train Muslim youths in militancy activities and establish a militant organization network in Ahmedabad.
Additionally, it was alleged that Ilyas Memon, a resident of Shah Alam area in Ahmedabad, had contact with Imran Kashmiri and received training in Kashmir and Bangladesh.
A total of 30 prosecution witnesses testified during the trial, including the then ACP of Ahmedabad city police, GL Singhal, who had conducted the investigation into the case following the FIR.
