- (1.)The State is aggrieved by the decision of the learned Additional Sessions Judge acquitting the respondents Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayaz Ahmed Lone, Abdul Majeed Baba and Shahid Gafoor for the offences punishable under Section 120B/121/121-A/122/123 IPC & Section 17/18/20/21/23 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (in short the UAP Act), acquitting Bashir Ahmed for offence punishable under Section 489(B)/489 (C) of IPC and Shahid Gafoor for offences punishable under Section 186/353/307 of IPC and Section 25/27 of the Arms Act, though Shahid Gafoor stands convicted for offence punishable under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act.
(2.)The prosecution case in nutshell is that in the first week of January 2007 a secret information was received that Commander of Pakistan based banned militant organization Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) having code name "Alpha-9" had instructed one Haider (code name-Doctor) r/o Pakistan and District Commander of Sopore area in J&K to carry out Fidayeen attack at some prominent places in the national capital and for this purpose "fidayeens" would be sent from Pakistan through Indo-Bangladesh border. On enquiries made, further information was received that Haider @ Doctor was planning to send arms, ammunition and explosives to the fidayeens in the Capital from J&K. On February 04, 2007 at 2.00 PM a specific information was received in the office of Special Cell/ NDR, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi that the said Haider @ Doctor had sent one Bashir r/o Sopore, J&K along with two other Kashmiri militants from Kashmir valley, who were having huge consignment of arms, ammunition and explosive material in their possession, which was to be delivered to a Pakistani Fidayeen in Delhi and they would be coming to Delhi by Malwa Express and delivering the consignment to the Pakistani fidayeen at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg (DDU Marg), Rouse Avenue near the Ranjeet Singh Flyover and in case raid is conducted they can be apprehended along with consignment of arms, ammunition and explosive material. A raiding team was constituted and it was found that Bashir Ahmed Ponnu @ Maulvi, Fayaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majeed Baba, who came by Malwa Express, met Shahid Gafoor and passed on the consignments when they were all apprehended. Bashir, Fayaz and Abdul were overpowered, however Shahid Gafoor tried to run away after firing on the police officials and thus cross-firing ensued in which none was hurt. Finally Gafoor was apprehended and PETN explosives, timer, non-electronic silver colour detonators, hand grenades and 100 notes of 500 rupees currency notes were recovered besides 10,000 USD.
(3.)The defence of the respondents is of false implication and they themselves appeared as defence witnesses. Bashir stated that he was doing the business of fruits at Sopore bus stand, J&K. In the last week of January 2007 when he was coming from Calcutta to Srinagar by Malda Express, while he was purchasing food items at Ambala Railway Station, he was illegally detained by the officials of Special Cell and falsely implicated. He denied the recoveries from him including 100 notes of USD of denomination 100/- each. Similarly, Fayaz stated that on January 28, 2007 he was in Ludhiana in relation to his business of Kashmiri Shawls where he was apprehended by officials of Special Cell, brought to Delhi and falsely implicated. Shahid stated that he was doing the business of readymade garments and had gone to Kathmandu from where he was apprehended by the officials of Special Cell, brought to Delhi and kept in illegal detention from January 13, 2007. Abdul Majeed Baba deposed that he was doing the business of fruits in Fruit Mandi and was coming from Calcutta to New Delhi by Rajdhani Express and when he reached the New Delhi Railway station on January 29, 2007 he was apprehended, illegally detained and falsely implicated.