Six Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) militants, including three Pakistanis, were on Saturday awarded life imprisonment by a Delhi court for hatching a conspiracy to kidnap cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, and former president APJ Abdul Kalam.
All six were held guilty by additional sessions judge Pinki after she found them guilty for conspiring to kidnap cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in 2002 to secure the release of two jailed terrorists, Nasarullah Langrial and Abdul Rahim, who were then lodged in different jails in New Delhi.
Rahim was an associate of Asif Raza Khan, an aide of Umar Sheikh, who was released by the Indian government along with others in exchange of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC814 in 1999.
The hijacked flight was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The terrorists were also accused of plotting to assassinate former president APJ Abdul Kalam during his visit to Patna in 2002.
The Delhi police had also charged them with conspiring to attack the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai.
The three Pakistan-based militants, Tariq Mohammed, Arshad Khan and Ashfaq Ahmed, and two Indians - Mufti Israr and Ghulam Qadir Bhatt - were held guilty under the anti-terror law POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), which has since been repealed.
The sixth accused, Ghulam Mohammad Dar, who was out on bail, was taken into custody with the pronouncement of the verdict on January 7, when all of them were convicted.
The accused had faced trial for offences of collecting arms with the intention to wage war against the government and conspiring to commit certain offences against the state.
Besides POTA, the accused were charged under the Arms Act and the three Pakistanis were also tried under the Foreigners Act for trespassing into India. Initially, the police had arrested 10 HuJI militants, including six Pakistanis in the case.
Of them, three Pakistanis - Mohammad Amran, Abdul Majeed and Mohammad Ashraf - had pleaded guilty in 2003 and were awarded eight years jail term for their varying roles, besides the fine.
Jalaluddin, who was termed as the mastermind, managed to flee from police custody during the probe and was later declared a proclaimed offender by the court.
The prosecution had relied upon e-mail exchanges of the accused with their Pakistan-based handlers to drive home the charges.
