UAPA court extends remand of 5 PFI functionaries till Oct 8

Mumbai: The special UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) court on Monday extended ATS custody of five men booked for their alleged association with the Popular Front of India (PFI) till October 8

Mumbai: The special UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) court on Monday extended ATS custody of five men booked for their alleged association with the Popular Front of India (PFI) till October 8.

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The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) obtained their custody for obtaining contents from their social media accounts.

“Investigating officers have to extract all information from mobile phones seized from the accused as per the chart mentioned in the case diary. Lots of information is to be confronted to the accused by the officer,” the special judge observed while extending the custody of the five accused to ATS for further investigation.

Five accused - Mazhar Khan, Sadiq Shaikh, Mohammad Iqbal Khan, Momin Mistry and Aasif Hussain Khan were arrested by the Mumbai unit of the Maharashtra ATS during the nationwide crackdown on PFI. They were arrested for their association with the organisation.

On Monday, the five were produced before the special UAPA court, as their earlier custody remand ended. While seeking their further custody, ATS emphasised the need to look at their social media posts and also the need to confront the accused with several materials recovered from them. Also, the prosecution contended that Sadiq had travelled across India and was held.

The plea was objected to by defence lawyers on the ground that the accused cannot be remanded to ATS custody merely to confront the electronic data which was yet to be extracted. It was contended that the officer had the devices from the first day and the data should have been extracted by now.

Besides, for Sadiq, it was argued that taking a legal workshop is not a crime. However, it has been projected by the prosecution as illegal.

The court, however, did not consider the objection and granted further custody of the accused to ATS for further investigation to gather more evidence.