lashkar-e-Toiba (leT) operative Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, one of the key handlers in the 26/11 attacks case, was among the 12 accused convicted on Thursday by a special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case.
While convicting 12 out of the total 22 accused in the case, Additional Sessions Judge Shrikant Anekar acquitted eight accused and separated the trial of two remaining accused in the case.
The Special court will hear arguments on quantum of sentence on Friday.
In what came as a setback to the Prosecution, the court dropped MCOCA charges framed against all the 22 accused in the case, including Jundal, for want of evidence.
However, the MCOCA court has accepted the Prosecution’s case that the aim of the convicted accused was to create terror in the minds of people and to eliminate leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then the Gujarat Chief Minister and right-wing leader leader Pravin Togadia to avenge the post-Godhra incident Gujarat riots.
One of the 12 persons found guilty in the 2006 Aruangabad arms haul case was Faizal Ataur Rehman Sheikh who is on death row in the July 11, 2006 Mumbai train bombings case.
Apart from Abu Jundal and Faizal Ataur Rehman Sheikh, ten other accused who were convicted in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, are, Mohammad Amir Shakil Ahmed alias Shaikh Amir Shaikh Shakil, Mohammad Muzfar Mohammad Tanveer, Javed Ahmed Abdul Majid, Mushtaq Ahmed Mohammad Isaf Shaikh, Afzal Khan Nabi Khan, Mohammad Sharif Shabir Ahmed, Bilal Ahmed Abdul Razaq, Sayyed Akif Sayyed Jafruddin, Afroz Khan Shahid Khan Pathan and Aslam Kashmiri.
The eight accused, who were acquitted in the case, are, Mohammad Juber Sayyed Anwar, Abdul Azim alias Raja alias Abdul Aziz Abdul Jalil, Riyaz Ahmed Morammad Ramzan alias Raju, Khatib Imran Akil Ahmed, Shaikh Vikar Ahmed Nisar, Abdul Samad alias Mohammad Samad Samshir Khan, Mohammad Akil Mohammad Ismail Momin and Firoz Tajudin Deshmukh.
The two remaining accused, whose trial was separated from the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case. are: Shaikh Abdul Naim alias Nayyu alias Sameer and Mehmud Sayyed alias Munna Mustafa. While Sameer’s case came to be separated after he absconded, Munna Mustafa’s trial was separated because he turned an approver in the case.
The Prosecution’s case was that after they chased a Tata Sumo jeep and an Indica car on Chandwad-Manmad highway near Aurangabad in the state, on May 8, 2006, the ATS sleuths conducted raids at Malegaon, Nashik, Aurangabad and Beed and seized 43 kg of deadly RDX, 16 AK-47 assault rifles, 50 Chinese-made grenades and over 3,200 rounds. They also arrested three terror suspects in connection with the seizure.
Behind the wheels of a car that was being chased, Jundal had given a slip to the ATS sleuths, driven to Malegaon, where he handed over the vehicle to an acquaintance and escaped.
Son of a petty insurance agent, Jundal – after passing out of SSC – did electrical instrumentation in a technical institute in Beed district. Hailing originally from Gevrai town in Beed, Jundal’s family moved to Hattikhana locality in Beed town in 2005. He went missing after the Aurangabad arms haul in May 2006.
After having gone into hiding for a few weeks, Jundal fled first to Bangladesh, from where he went to Pakistan using a fake passport.
Barring Jundal, other 21 terror suspects were arrested in connection with the Aurangabad arms haul case. The trial court framed charges against the 21 accused on August 17, 2012.
Jundal, who had been named as absconding accused in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, was arrested in June 2012 on his arrival in New Delhi, following his deportation from Saudi Arabia where he had been holed up after shifting his base from Pakistan.
Following his arrest, the ATS filed a 3,650-page supplementary charge-sheet in the same court on November 3, 2012.
During the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, the Prosecution examined 100 witnesses, while defence lawyers examined 16.
In his verdict, the judge noted that the court had discarded seven confessions in the case and accepted other three, while observing that the accused had extensively used mobile and internet facility. He also accepted ATS’ case that Jundal was driving the Indica car.
The Supreme Court had stayed the trial for a while after one of the accused challenged constitutional validity of certain provisions of MCOCA. The stay was vacated in 2009.
In August last year, the Bombay High Court directed the lower court to expedite the trial.
Jundal, who also faces the charge of having been one of the key handlers in the 26/11 attacks case and also part of a conspiracy to attack the state police academy at Nashik in north Maharashtra, has been convicted for the first time in any case.
In its 14,676 page supplementary charge-sheet filed in the 26/11 attack case in a city court on October 16, 2012, the Prosecution had charged Jundal with having taught Hindi to the lone surviving terrorist, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and nine other fellow Pakistani terrorists who carried out the November 26-29, 2008 attack on Mumbai, in which 166 persons were killed and 260 others injured.
Jundal also faces the charges of having given directions to two of the Pakistani terrorists holed up at Nariman House, one of the terror targets, and briefing the Pakistani terrorists about the topography of south Mumbai where the attack took place.
Jundal was allegedly present along with let's chief commander Zaki-ur-Rehman laqvi and other conspirators at Karachi-based the terror outfit's “control room”, from where the attack on Mumbai was supervised.