After 5 Years In Jail, Tripura Man Let Off In IISc Bengaluru Terror Case

A Tripura native was last week acquitted of terror charges for his alleged role in a shooting incident at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru. The 36-year-old Mohammed Habeeb had been in jail for five years till he was cleared by a special NIA court on June 14.

Mr Habeeb was arrested in 2016 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the December 2005 shooting incident which led to the death of one person and injuries to some others. The Karnataka police had said the attack was carried out by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and later arrested him, identifying him as "conspirator of the terror attack".

After his release from the Central Prison in Bengaluru, Mr Habeeb said, "My father died hearing the allegations against me. I was kept in jail without any trial for four years and now discharged as they couldn't provide any evidence against me. I had never come to Bengaluru before."

His advocate Tahir Amir, who didn't charge any fees from him, said that "he is not alone to be kept behind bars without trial for many years". "Twenty seven persons accused in the case of the 2013 blast outside the state BJP headquarters in Bengaluru are languishing," he said.

A resident of Jogendra Nagar in Tripura's Agartala, Mr Habeeb, the police claimed, had taken the main accused in the 2005 shooting case to Bangladesh illegally. They said he was also involved in terror activities in Bengaluru.

Mr Habeeb, a garage mechanic by profession, was arrested on the basis of the confessional statement by one Salauddeen, arrested by the Lucknow police in 2008. "That, too, after almost nine years, in December 2017," said the advocate.

He was charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Explosives Act, and various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

However, the special court disagreed with the prosecution. It accepted Mr Habeeb's plea that the "police have not stated anything in the chargesheet about the accused and also not collected any evidence which show that the accused has any distinct knowledge of the incident or crime involved in this case at any point of time".

"On the basis of the materials available on hand, I am of the considered opinion that there is no sufficient grounds to proceed against accused," the judge said.