Nashik, Maharashtra:
The Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad on Thursday filed a charge sheet against suspected LeT terrorist Abu Jundal for planning an attack on vital installations of the city.
The charge sheet that runs in 58 pages has been filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate A.D. Sawant. Abu Jundal has been charged with criminal conspiracy, Special Public Prosecutor Ajay Misar said.
This is the second charge sheet that has been filed against Abu Jundal. In October last year, the Mumbai crime branch had filed a charge sheet in a Mumbai court against the alleged 26/11 handler, which ran over 13,000 pages and consisted of 56 volumes.
In the charge sheet filed in the Nashik court, Jundal has been accused of aiding key Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives in their recce of police academy, the police commissionerate and the cantonment area of the city.
Nine other accused including Billal Shaikh and Himayat Beg, who were also a part of the team that conducted a recce of the Nashik Police Academy in 2010 have been named in the charge sheet, Misar said.
While Shaikh and Beg are currently in judicial custody, seven other accused are yet to be traced.
On July 21, Abu Jundal was brought to Mumbai after a Delhi court handed over his custody to police in Nashik for questioning in his alleged role in the Mumbai terror attack.
On August 13, the court had remanded him to the custody of ATS. He was earlier in the custody of the crime branch, where he also recorded his confessional statement reportedly providing all details of the entire operation of 26/11 terror attacks.
Hailing from Beed district near Aurangabad, Abu Jundal sneaked into Bangladesh and later to Pakistan on a fake passport procured with help from some LeT activists.
Jundal was working in Saudi Arabia before being deported to India in June. He was arrested by Delhi Police on arrival at the airport. A Delhi court later granted his custody to Maharashtra Police.