Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 8: Principal Sessions Judge Udhampur, A K Koul today awarded seven years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs 10,000 to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant namely Abu Baker, son of Abdullah of Manipur.
The militant was arrested following gun battle with Police and BSF in Jhangar area of Ramnagar tehsil on August 20, 2007. An AK 56 Rifle, empty magazine of AK 56 Rifle and a 303 Rifle along with 50 live cartridges were recovered from the militant.
During investigation it came to the fore that 303 rifle and 50 cartridges were allotted to a VDC member Hamid Farooq on May 9, 2006, which were snatched from him by militants on July 1, 2006.
The antecedents of accused were verified from his hometown in Manipur and it was found that actual name of accused was Aslah-ul-Din with code name Abu Bakar and he was working for LeT organization. After completion of investigation, challan was presented in the court of law.
After hearing Advocate P K Jandial (amicus-curie) for the accused and Public Prosecutor Navneet Gupta for the State, Principal Sessions Judge observed, “the prosecution story narrated by police officials gets belied. All the police officials have in one voice stated that during the search operation accused fired upon the police party but as per prosecution witness Krishan Chand the accused had himself surrendered before the police in Dudu Police Post”.
“The cumulative effect of the debate is that prosecution has failed to establish convincingly that accused fired upon the police party during the search operation. So accused is acquitted in so far as offence under Section 307 RPC is concerned but so far as possession of prohibited arms, firearms and ammunition by accused is concerned the same is convincingly established”, the Court observed.
“So the accused ordinarily deserved to be convicted under Sections 3/25 Arms Act and 7/25 Arms Act, but in view of the rigor contained in Section 39 of the Arms Act the accused cannot be convicted under Section 3/25 of Arms Act because prosecution of accused under Section 3 of Arms Act requires sanction of District Magistrate but there is no such sanction nor could same be expected as the charge sheet against the accused was not laid under Section 3 of the Arms Act”, the Court further observed.
While convicting the accused under Section 7/25 of Arms Act, the Court awarded imprisonment for seven years and a fine of Rs 10,000.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel