President rejects mercy plea by 2000 Red Fort attack convict
The Supreme Court had rejected the mercy review petition by Ashfaq, who is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, on November 3, 2022
President Droupadi Murmu has rejected the mercy petition by Pakistan national Mohammed Arif aka Ashfaq, convicted for the 2000 Red Fort attack, officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court had rejected the mercy review petition by Ashfaq, who is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, on November 3, 2022, the officials said.
The officials said that Ashfaq’s mercy petition was received by the President office on May 15, and was rejected on May 27. Ashfaq was awarded death sentence on October 31, 2005. The Delhi high court and the Supreme Court upheld the decision in subsequent appeals in September 2007 and August 2011 respectively.
Senior jail officials, who asked not to be named, confirmed the Pakistan national is lodged in a high-risk cell inside Tihar jail number 2. “The lower court that sentenced Ashfaq to death will first have to issue a black warrant. The black warrant will be sent to the jail authorities. That is when the formalities for hanging will begin,” the official added.
On December 22, 2000, terrorists, including Ashfaq had entered an area where the unit of 7 Rajputana Rifles of the Indian Army was stationed inside the Red Fort. Three army personnel were killed in firing after which the terrorists fled the spot by scaling the wall. The Delhi police’s special cell unit, which had probed the case had arrested Ashfaq, a Pakistani national.
Retired IPS officer, Ashok Chand, who had supervised the probe, said, “The Red Fort attack was an attack on the the country’s most important installations. Ashfaq was arrested from Ghazipur in east Delhi, where he was living as an Indian citizen. When we conducted raids at his hideout in Jamia Nagar, one of his accomplices was also shot dead in a shoot-out. He was posing as a Jammu resident, who had a shawl business. He had also got married in India.”
Chand added that the Red Fort attack was orchestrated by the Pak based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Ashfaq was one the main planners of the attack who had conducted a recee and set up the sleeper cell to carry out the attack. The three militants -- Abu Shaad, Abu Bilal and Abu Haider -- who had also entered the monument, were killed in separate encounters with security forces, Chand said.
The last hanging in Tihar was that of Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma – the four convicts of the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. The four were hanged on March 20, 2020.
Before Ashfaq’s petition was rejected last month, the Rashtrapati Bhawan had on April 10, 2023 rejected the mercy petition of Vasanta Sampat Dupare, a man convicted for raping and stoning to death a four-year-old girl in Maharashtra in 2008.