A special NIA court in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district has sentenced five Naxal sympathisers to 10 years of imprisonment for acting as couriers of Maoists and supplying explosives, ration to them.
Special Judge R P Sharma yesterday awarded a 10-year jail term to Babulal Sharma, Tarak Kundu, Katiyaram Nareti, Rajesh Dhurva and Shatruhan Vaishnav, Special Public Prosecutor Amin Khan said today.
The court also slapped a fine of Rs 500 on each of them, he added.
Chhattisgarh has two NIA courts, one at Bilaspur and another at Dantewada. This is the first case in the state in which an NIA court has given its verdict, Khan said.
On August 25, 2013, the police had arrested Sharma and Kundu from the Shankar Nagar area of state capital Raipur and seized a huge cache of explosives and material used to make bombs from their possession, he added.
Subsequently, the police also arrested Sharma's three other associates - Nareti, Dhruva and Vaishnav -- who too were found to be operating the urban network of the Maoists, Khan said.
The matter was later handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
After the hearing yesterday, the five were convicted by the NIA court, Khan added.
(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
