Anees Ansari gets life for planning attack on American School in BKC

Mumbai In one of the rare instances, Mumbai sessions court on Friday convicted a 32-year-old computer engineer, purportedly influenced by ISIS ideology, for cyber terrorism and sentenced him to life imprisonment

Mumbai In one of the rare instances, Mumbai sessions court on Friday convicted a 32-year-old computer engineer, purportedly influenced by ISIS ideology, for cyber terrorism and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Anees Ansari gets life for planning attack on American School in BKC

The convict, Anees Shakil Ahmed Ansari, was arrested on October 18, 2014 for planning a “lone wolf” attack on the American School of Bombay at the Bandra Kurla Complex with an intention to kill children.

The court said Ansari exceeded authorised access of the internet of the company he was employed with, to transmit material information to Elhaj and conspire to carry out an attack on the American School of Bombay. The court held that while on official duty Ansari, accessed several sites, downloaded data and information which he was not authorized to.

Prosecution claimed that Ansari, influenced by ISIS ideology, created a fake profile on a social networking site and used it to communicate with several people about the ideology of ISIS and radicalise them.

During the probe, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials retrieved Ansari’s social media communications and recovered his conversation with one Omar Elhaji, who was apparently based in the United States of America.

The prosecution alleged that Ansari was in touch with Elhaji for five continuous days and in his conversations with Elhaji, the 32-year-old discussed about methods of making bombs and tried to convince him to join him to carry out an attack on the American School in BKC.

Police claimed that he had also shared several articles related to ISIS theories and ideology with Elhaji. During the probe the IP address of Elhaji was traced to a location in US, however, the agency could not obtain any further information about him.

The court convicted Ansari under cyber terrorism charge, under section 66F of the Information Technology Act, 2000, primarily on the basis of the chats retrieved by the investigating team from his computer.

Holding him guilty of cyber terrorism, special judge AA Joglekar said, “the accused on the reported date and time by exceeding such authorized access and by means of such conduct obtained access to information which has reason to believe that such information data or computer data base so obtained may be used to cause or likely to cause injury to the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India qua the security of State and public order.”

The court observed further, “the conduct of the accused before and during the course of the investigation has propelled out his active involvement in such proposed attack that too by exceeding authorised access and being threat to the integrity and sovereignty of India thereby laying the mater within the purview of cyber terrorism.”

Elaborating on the theory of “exceeded authorised access” the court said, “access (to internet) was granted for the purposes of official duties for discharging official functions and not for the purposes of visiting/accessing such sites which have no concern with the official duties. Considering the job profile of the accused his conduct of accessing such sites which have no concern with his job profile propel for such unwarranted access.”

The sessions judge also refused to show any leniency to Ansari and observed that, “the proved offence against the accused is certainly a detriment for society and may have caused or likely to have caused injury to the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India and the security of the State and public order.”

The court handed him down the maximum punishment of life imprisonment, observing that no mitigating circumstance was brought to its notice, except the young age of the accused and that, he is highly qualified and sole bread winner for the family and “that naturally cannot be at the cost of the security of the Nation.”