'Well-behaved' convicts sent to the gallows

Lajpat Nagar blast accused praised for good behaviour; cops pulled up for shoddy probe

Lajpat Nagar blast accused praised for good behaviour; cops pulled up for shoddy probe

Even though Mohammad Naushad, Mohammad Ali Bhatt and Mirza Nasir were found guilty of carrying out a blast in Lajpat Nagar and were sentenced to death, the court did not miss to highlight their good behaviour in its 42-page judgment.u00a0


Good boys: (from left) Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mohd Naushad and Mirza
Nissar Hussain, all convicts of the Lajpat Nagar blast case, at the Patiala
House court in New Delhi on Thursday. Pics/Imtiyaz Khan

Advocate Anwar Ahmad Khan who represented the convicts told MiD DAY, "The original order related to the case ran into more than 400 pages. The 42 pages in which the quantum of punishment was mentioned has a word of praise for the convicted militants' "good behaviour" during the pendency of the trial.

He further informed that the verdict also praised the convicts for their conduct in the courtroom. "The court has specially mentioned that in the 14 years of the trial the convicts never misbehaved with the court and court staff. They also never showed any kind of disrespect to the court," said Khan.

On Thursday when the court sentenced the three convicts to death, they, according to the lawyer, accepted the order with total respect. "They only asked if they can appeal in the higher court," he said.

Up in arms

Describing the death sentence awarded to three Kashmiri militants in connection with Lajpat Nagar as an "unfortunate incident", both the factions of Hurriyat Conference (HC) have called a general strike in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday.u00a0u00a0 The moderate Hurriyat, headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and the breakaway faction, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, gave a joint call for a strike today in the entire state. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has also declared her support to the protest and termed the judgment "unfortunate".

Meanwhile the defence counsels are preparing to file an appeal with the High Court against the death sentence. The district and sessions court while announcing the punishment put the case in the rarest of the rare category where the convicts never showed any sign of remorse. But at the same time it pulled up Delhi police's "highly defective" probe.

The case and the chargesheet were prepared on the basis of circumstantial evidence against the three convicts but the court upheld the evidence, saying that only circumstantial evidences are available in such cases.

The court also sentenced the fourth accused Javed Ahmed Khan to life imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 35,000 on him. Farida Dar, the lone woman convict held guilty for a lesser offence, was awarded a jail term of four years and two months. A fine of Rs 10,000 was also imposed on her. The sixth and the final convict Farooq Ahmed Khan was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000 was imposed on him.