Jaipur court sentences 12 SIMI activists for life for indulging in terror activities

The Jaipur district court on Tuesday sentenced 12 persons to life imprisonment for terror activities. The court also acquitted one of the 13 accused.

All the convicted were engineering students who worked for Indian Mujahideen, according to prosecution. They were arrested in 2014 by the Anti- Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Special Operation Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police. Six of them are from Sikar, three from Jodhpur, one each from Jaipur and Pali and one from Gaya in Bihar. One student who is acquitted is a resident of Jodhpur.

The convicted are Mohammad Ammar Yasir (Gaya) Mohammad Sajjad (Sikar), Mohammad Aqib (Sikar), Mohammed Omar (Sikar), Abdul Wahid Ghauri (Sikar), Mohammad Waqar (Sikar), Abdul Majid alias Addas (Sikar), Mohammad Maruf (Jaipur), Waqar (Pali), Barkat (Jodhpur), Mohammad Saqib Ansari (Jodhpur) and Ashraf Ali Khan (Jodhpur).

Mashraf Iqbal, who is from Jodhpur, has been acquitted in the case.

The ATS and SOG teams had arrested 13 youths from Jaipur, Sikar and some other districts in 2014 on the basis of information revealed by some terrorists arrested in Delhi. Police said the arrested youth were part of SIMI sleeper cell and were engaged in activities like making bombs to carry out attacks in Rajasthan.

The ATS had also claimed that Omar, a relative of Maruf who was arrested from Jaipur for activating SIMI’s sleeper cell, had connected these youths to the organization through the internet. After this, these youth became active and got involved in terrorist activities.

In the case that ran for seven years in the court, the prosecution produced 178 witnesses and 506 documents as evidence.

The men were found guilty of buying mobile SIMs through fake documents, raising funds in the name of jihad, giving shelter to terrorists and involving in recce for bombings. The police recovered laptops, phones, pen drives, books, documents and electronic items from them. The Rajasthan ATS had registered an FIR in this case on March 28, 2014.