All six men convicted for circulating fake Indian currency notes have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court. The men were caught in May 2009 exchanging currency in Mazagon and the probe in the first such case handled by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), revealed that the notes were printed in Pakistan.
On Thursday judge Prithviraj Chavan, presiding over the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court, upheld the prosecution’s plea that this was an attack on the economy which affected the sovereignty and security of the nation and was therefore an act of terror.
Rohini Salian, NIA special public prosecutor, said, “The act committed by the accused was actually a terror act since they had conspired with a neighbouring country in waging a proxy war against the nation. Hence the prosecution pleaded before the court to award the accused the maximum punishment, which is life imprisonment.”
The advocates representing the accused pleaded for a minimum sentence.
On hearing the sentence, the accused broke down. While being taken out of the courtroom, one of them said they had been falsely implicated. “We will appeal against the order in a higher court,” said Mohammed Aijul Shaikh.
