13 get life imprisonment for jihadi recruitment from Kerala

T Ramavarman, TNN | Oct 5, 2013,

13 get life imprisonment for jihadi recruitment from Kerala
The NIA team which investigated the case had established that the accused conducted motivational sessions in various parts of Kerala and at Hyderabad to prepare the recruits for waging ‘jihad‘.
  • KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court here on Friday sentenced 13 people to life imprisonment after they were found guilty on charges of recruiting youths from Kerala to carry out acts of terror with the support of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan‘s ISI.
Three of them — Abdul Jabbar, Sabir Buhari and Sarfraz Navas — have been given two life sentences for plotting to “wage war against India”.The whole recruitment angle came to light after the death of four Kerala youth in encounters with security forces in Kupwara in Jammu & Kashmir on October 4, 2008. Jabbar, who survived the encounter and escaped from Kashmir, was subsequently apprehended in Kerala.

Special court judge S Vijayakumar in his order, pronounced exactly five years after the encounter deaths, said the provisions under which Jabbar had been found guilty could have invited the death sentence. “But I avoid death penalty and I sentence him to undergo life imprisonment,” the order said. Incidentally, after pronouncing the sentence, the judge countered the charge of perceived leniency by saying that “no one is born a terrorist” and that courts everywhere including in India, were increasingly against the death penalty.

Thadiyantevide Nazeer, allegedly one of the masterminds of the terrorist network in Kerala and also an accused in several cases like the Bangalore twin-blast case, was awarded life imprisonment.

Navas, while leaving the courtroom after the sentencing, called himself and his fellow convicts “successors of Kunhali Marikkar” — the legendary 16th century Muslim admiral of Calicut who fought the Portuguese — and questioned the moral right of “those [descendants] who had maintained a servile attitude towards the invading Europeans to dictate lessons on patriotism to us.”

The NIA team which investigated the case had established that the accused conducted motivational sessions in various parts of Kerala and at Hyderabad to prepare the recruits for waging ‘jihad’ and provide training for carrying out armed action against the state. Apart from the arms recovered from the deceased terrorists, the investigating team had also seized many other incriminating materials like cash, printed materials and CDs, and records of telephone conversations with the contacts from Pakistan.

The NIA had originally charged 24 people in the case including the four who were killed in the encounter. The NIA court acquitted five of the accused while two others, including Pakistani national Wali alias Abdul Rehman, are still absconding.

 

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