Delhi Court pulls up NIA for booking man under UAPA on mere recovery of arms

Additional sessions judge Parveen Singh said it revealed a sad state of affairs wherein the high handedness of police officers makes a person suffer for a crime that he has not committed as he has been accused of being involved in terror activities in the charge sheet.

A Delhi court has pulled up the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for booking an accused under the stringent provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in a terror funding case, on the mere recovery of an illegal weapon from his house.

National Investigation Agency (NIA) (HT FILE PHOTO)

Additional sessions judge Parveen Singh said it revealed a sad state of affairs wherein the high handedness of police officers makes a person suffer for a crime that he has not committed as he has been accused of being involved in terror activities in the charge sheet.

According to the prosecution, on November 28, 2017, accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem was arrested from Uttar Pradesh, for his alleged involvement in raising funds from the main operatives of proscribed terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) based in Pakistan, for terrorist activities in India.

During investigation, it was revealed that accused Bedar Bakht, Towseef Ahmad Malik, Mafooz Alam, Habib-ur-Rehnam and Amzad had allegedly provided shelter, logistics, mobile phones to Naeem, raised funds for him and had also facilitated him in using a fake identity, that of Sonu Sohel Khan.

It was further revealed during investigation that Abdul Samad, accused Dinesh Garg and Adish Kumar Jain were allegedly involved in receiving, collecting and delivering funds received from Saudi Arabia.

While discharging four of the nine accused in the case, the judge came across a “surprising situation” when, on a specific query, it got to know that one accused, Adish Kumar Jain, was arrested only because there was an arms recovery from his house.

The court said Jain could not have been made an accused in the case unless there was evidence of hawala transactions linked to him, or that he was engaged in receiving or disbursing funds to some terror module or on behalf of some terror organisation.

“This is a very surprising submission which has been made and it reveals a sad state of affairs where the high handedness of police officers makes a person suffers for a crime which he has not committed as just by the reason of recovery of illegal arms/ weapons from his house, the person has been arrested and charge-sheeted under the stringent provisions of UAPA and has been claimed to be involved in terror activities,” it said in an order on June 10.

It further said Jain has been in custody since his arrest despite the fact that the only offence for which he could have been charged was under the Arms Act, over the alleged recovery of the illegal arms.

“Apart from that, there is no evidence at all of accused Adish Kumar Jain of either being involved in the conspiracy of present case or otherwise being involved in any terrorist activities or activities related to terror funding,” the judge said.

The court discharged Samad, who turned an approver in the case, Garg, Jain and Gul Nawaz of all offences, including sections under the UAPA.

The court, however, framed charges for criminal conspiracy and raising funds for terrorist activities against Naeem, Bakht, Malik, Habib-ur-Rehman and Javed.