Dawood, henchmen, ISI: 82 in all caught in Gujarat POTA net

The Gujarat Police today filed a chargesheet in a POTA court against 82 people alleging that as revenge for the atrocities on Muslims in the...

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The Gujarat Police today filed a chargesheet in a POTA court against 82 people alleging that as revenge for the atrocities on Muslims in the riots, they were ‘‘waging war against the state’’ and obtaining terrorist training in Pakistan from the ISI.

This was part of a conspiracy, the chargesheet says, to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Deputy PM L K Advani, VHP’s Pravin Togadia and senior Sangh Parivar leaders.

Of the 82 accused, 39 are in Sabarmati Central Jail, and the rest are absconding. Among the absconders named are underworld dons Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel and their henchmen Rasool Pati, Sharif Khan, Mufti Sufiyan, Mohammed Rauf and Sohail Khan Pathan. They have all been charged under POTA, the Indian Penal Code, and the Arms Act.

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The 1,087-page chargesheet says the conspiracy was unearthed with the arrest of five men from Parimal Gardens on April 4, 2003 in connection with the Haren Pandya murder case.

It says Rauf and Sufiyan incited the five by showing them videotapes of atrocities being committed on Muslims, and urged them to take revenge. Rauf and Sufiyan then allegedly recruited youths from Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and sent them to Pakistan via Bangladesh. There, the ISI trained them in terrorist activity. Also, the youths were linked to Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and other terrorist groups, the chargesheet says.

Some foreign nations allegedly provided the men money to spread terror in the city and wage proxy war against the state.

Filed by the Detection of Crime Branch of the Ahmedabad police in the special POTA court of Sonia Gokani, the chargesheet does not identify all witnesses by name—claiming that their lives are under threat—and instead assigns some of them codes like A-1, A-2 and so forth. However, the court has been given a sealed envelope containing the real names of the witnesses and their code.

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Assistant Commissioner G L Singhal told the court that there were 236 witnesses of whom 43 faced a threat.

Police also say they recovered 23 weapons from the accused.

Special public prosecutor H M Dhruv moved two applications before the court under Sections 30 and 27 of POTA. While the application under Section 30 requested the court to allow the police to keep the names of the witnessess secret, the application under Section 27 seeks specimens of the handwriting of two accused, Mohammed Raiz and Yakub Beg. Dhruv told the court that these were needed for matching against entries made at a register in a hotel in Kolkata.

After hearing the prayers of the prosecution the court said that it is not inclined to pass the order unless it hears the defence side, and set hearing for September 11.