Delhi court discharges three men who NIA says are suspected key operatives of Indian Mujahideen

Three men were discharged by a Delhi Court on Friday who were arrested and booked by the National investigative Agency (NIA) for allegedly being key operatives of Indian Mujahideen

A Delhi court on Friday discharged three men who were arrested and booked by the National investigative Agency (NIA) for allegedly being key operatives of Indian Mujahideen (IM). Those discharged include Abdul Wahid Sidibappa, a driver who worked in Dubai and has been in jail since 2016, and Manzar Imam, a former Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) member lodged in prison since 2013. Ariz Khan, who had already been sentenced to capital punishment in the 2008 Batla House murder case, too was discharged.

Additional Sessions Judge Shailender Malik of the Patiala House Court however framed charges against 11 accused in the case, mostly under various sections of Unlawful Activity Prevention Act (UAPA). The trial court took almost a decade to frame charges. 

The matter pertains to a case lodged by the NIA in September 2012 against suspected members of IM and IM modules based in the country. The members, according to the agency, were collectively conspiring to commit terror acts like bomb blasts at prominent places across India. The NIA, in multiple chargesheets filed in this case, maintained that the accused had support from their Pakistan-based operatives and associates and aimed to wage war against the Government of India.

Advocate M.S. Khan, counsel for Mr. Siddibappa maintained that his client remained in jail due to “inordinate delay” in the trial of a case registered in 2012.

Mr. Sidibappa, a resident of Bhatkal in Karnataka, is said to be the cousin of Mohammad Ahmed Siddibappa alias Yasin Bhatkal, co-founder of IM. He was arrested from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on May 20, 2016.

NIA had alleged that Mr. Sidibappa was instrumental in channelising terror funds received from IM operatives in Pakistan through hawala transactions via Dubai for use of IM operatives based in India for conducting terrorist activities. The agency had produced a couple of witnesses from Dubai to testify to Mr. Siddibappa’s IM connection but court rejected charges of any direct link of the accused with the terrorist organisation.

“It must be noted that these witnesses are based in Dubai. These witnesses themselves are involved in hawala business. If their statement is taken on the face of it, maximum what comes in the judicial cognizance from these statements is that the accused was working as a driver with one of the witnesses who had a business of hawala transaction in Dubai and on certain occasions the accused had sent money through hawala to his wife at Bhatkal,” the court said.