HC denies bail to engineer convicted for planning ‘lone wolf’ attack on BKC school

Bombay HC denies bail to Anees Ansari, a computer engineer sentenced to life imprisonment for planning a "lone wolf" attack on an American school in Mumbai.

The Bombay high court has refused to grant bail to Kurla resident Anees Shakil Ahmed Ansari, a computer engineer convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to carry out a “lone wolf” attack on American School of Bombay in Bandra Kurla Complex.

HC denies bail to engineer convicted for planning ‘lone wolf’ attack on BKC school

A division bench of justice Prakash D Naik and justice NR Borkar on December 14 rejected 33-year-old Ansari’s plea seeking suspension of sentence and bail during pendency of his appeal against his conviction, primarily in view of the evidence available against him.

On October 18, 2014, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested Ansari, who was influenced by ISIS ideology, in connection with cyber terrorism. Investigation revealed that while working at a private firm in SEEPZ he had created social medical accounts and mail accounts in fictitious names and was in touch with several like-minded people.

ATS officials recovered Ansari’s social medial communications and his conversations with one Omar Elhajj, a resident of the United States. Police claimed the computer engineer was in touch with Elhajj for five consecutive days and he had discussed methods of making bombs and tried to convince Elhajj to join him to for an attack on the school.

The police said he had also shared several articles related to ISIS theories and ideology with Elhajj. During the probe, the IP address of Elhajj was traced to a location in the US, but the agency could not obtain any further information about him.

On October 21, 2022, the sessions court convicted Ansari on the charge of cyber terrorism, under section 66F of the Information Technology Act, 2000, primarily on the basis of the chats retrieved from his computer and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Ansari challenged his conviction before the high court last year. Recently, he filed a plea for bail during pendency of his appeal, contending that he had been behind bars for more than nine years and that he was erroneously convicted of cyber terrorism, as there was no evidence to prove the charge against him.

His counsel submitted that cyber terrorism is the use of computer network tools to harm or shut down critical national infrastructures such as energy, transportation, government operations, etc. but there was no material to constitute the offence defined under section 66F.

The argument, however, failed to impress upon the bench. The court rejected the plea for bail, stating that adequate evidence was available on record against the convict.