Mumbai Court awards life imprisonment to computer engineer in cyber terrorism

Additional judge A. A. Joglekar noted that Ansari misused the access of authorised computers to threaten the sovereignty of India which falls under the purview of cyberterrorism.

The city civil and sessions court sentenced a computer engineer for life imprisonment for conspiring to kill foreigners in an international school in Mumbai. This is the first conviction of cyber terrorism.

Anti-Terrorism Squad got the information that Ansari was employed with M/s Here Solutions India Private Limited at Seepz, Andheri, Mumbai. It was also learnt that Ansari also works at Associate Geographic Technician. He used his company's laptop to generate fake Facebook account with fake name Usayrim Logan and downloaded objectionable material from 2011 to 2014.

The agency found he supported activities of terrorist organisation IS and with the help of one Omar Elhajj he was conspiring to attack foreign nationals in Mumbai at an international school in Bandra Kurla Complex. He was procuring information to make a thermite bomb. He was arrested in March 2018 for sending offensive messages on ideologies of IS to Omar with an intent to threaten the unity, sovereignty and security of India.

Additional judge A. A. Joglekar on October 20 noted Ansari misused the access of authorised computers to threaten the sovereignty of India which falls under the purview of cyberterrorism.

The court found Ansari, 32, guilty under sections of the Information Technology Act and Indian Penal Code and referred to chats of Logan with officials in the Indian embassy and international schools.

The 40-page judgment read, "The proved offence against the accused is certainly detrimental for society and may have caused or likely to have caused injury of sovereignty and integrity of India and the security of the State and public order. Law demands that such perpetrator of crime is to be dealt with the required degree of deterrence, proportionate to the severity of the offence committed by him and it does not appear to the court that he deserves leniency."