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Srinagar: Six acquitted in Maulvi Showkat murder case
Maulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah was a prominent Jammu and Kashmir cleric who was murdered in a cycle explosion in 2011
A special trial court here has acquitted six of the eight accused in the killing of prominent Jammu and Kashmir cleric Maulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah, who was murdered in a cycle explosion in 2011.
Ashwani Kumar Sharma, additional sessions judge TADA, POTA and special judge designated under NIA Act in Srinagar, stated that the prosecution has failed to prove whether in fact the murder of Shah was committed by the accused persons on the basis of the alleged conspiracy and whether the act of the accused was a terrorist act.
“In the present case, a terror has been struck in the people by using the IED in the killing of Shah (the deceased) but who has struck the terror and by whom the IED has been blasted has not been established before the court by the prosecution. It has not been established before the court when the conspiracy to kill was hatched as alleged,” the court said in the judgment pronounced on Thursday.
The acquitted persons include Abdul Gani Dar alias Abdullah Gazali, former chief of militant outfit Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen (TuM) and alleged president of Sout-ul-Haq, alleged militants Nisar Ahmad Khan alias Ishaq and Javaid Ahmad Munshi alias Bill Papa, besides Abdul Majid Dar Almadni, Gulzar Khan and Riyaz Ahmad Shah. During the trial, Abdullah Gazali, out on bail, was found murdered in February 2020 inside Jamiat-Ahli Hadees, the same mosque outside which Shah was killed in an explosion in 2011 in Maisuma.
The accused were represented by advocates M A Pandit, Abu Adil Pandit, Abu Owais Pandit, Nadeem Pandit and Mohammad Amin.
The police had filed the chargesheet against the six and another two who were “absconding”, after claiming that the murder was part of a “conspiracy” to radicalise the Shah-led organisation Jamiat Ahli Hadith. The accused were chargesheeted with murder, unlawful activities Act and Arms Act.
“The challan of the prosecution as such is dismissed. Accused persons are acquitted of the charges leveled against them…by giving them a reasonable benefit of the doubt,” the court said.
The court also directed that the file be consigned to records and put before the court again on the arrest of seventh and eighth accused. The two are Fayaz Ahmad Dar alias Jameel-ur-Rehman, general secretary of PoK-based Jihad Council and Mohammad Azhar Ali alias Abdullah Uni, a militant commander who was killed in an encounter in September 2011.
Shah, a prominent religious leader and head of Jamiat-Ahli-Hadees, was killed on April 8, 2011, in a blast planted on a cycle when he was entering a mosque for Friday prayers. Shah was also a close aide of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik.
