New Delhi, Apr 14, KDC: A special court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Lucknow has sentenced three more accused in the 2021 Al-Qaeda-linked radicalisation and recruitment case, the agency said in a statement.
The convicted accused have been identified as Museeruddin alias Raju and Minhaj Ahmad alias Minhaj, both residents of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, and Tawheed Ahmad Shah alias Sobu Shah from Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the NIA statement, the court awarded varying sentences ranging from five years of rigorous imprisonment to life imprisonment. The sentences will run concurrently, and the convicts have also been fined up to Rs 20,000.
The agency said three other accused—Shakeel, Mohd Mustaqeem and Mohammad Moid, all from Lucknow—had earlier been convicted after pleading guilty under the Arms Act. Charges against all six accused were filed by the NIA through two chargesheets in 2022.
The case was initially registered by the Uttar Pradesh Police following the arrest of Museeruddin and Minhaj by the UP Anti-Terrorism Squad in July 2021. The duo was found involved in radicalisation and recruitment of youth for raising Ansaar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) as a module of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Lucknow.
As per the NIA statement, the conspiracy aimed at carrying out terrorist attacks in multiple cities of Uttar Pradesh, including Lucknow, ahead of Independence Day celebrations in 2021.
Investigations further revealed that Minhaj was radicalised by Tawheed Ahmad Shah and another accused, Adil Nabi Teli alias Musa. The trio allegedly conspired to recruit members for the banned AGH outfit to execute terror activities.
The NIA said Museeruddin was later inducted into the conspiracy by Minhaj and had taken ‘Baiyat’ (oath of allegiance). Subsequently, arms, ammunition and explosive materials were procured with the assistance of the other accused as part of the larger conspiracy to wage war against the Government of India.
During the probe, Musa was found to be a declared terrorist linked to The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba. He was killed in an encounter in March 2022, following which the NIA filed an abated chargesheet against him in August the same year, the statement added. (KDC)
