JOIN USAbu Jundal, who had trained Pakistani fidayeens, including Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and was present in the control room in Karachi during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was on Tuesday sent to jail for life for his role in the Aurangabad arms haul case.
Jundal (35) is associated with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Indian Mujahideen, and was convicted last week by a special court set up under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), along with 11 others, in the Aurangabad arms haul case.
Jundal is also facing trial in the Mumbai terror attack case and his role is also being suspected in the blast at Pune’s German Bakery in 2010, which was the first terror attack in India outside Jammu & Kashmir and the Northeast, since the 26/11 attack.
Additional sessions judge Shrikant Anekar, who presides over the special MCOCA court, handed out the life sentence to Jundal, who is currently lodged at the high-security cell at Arthur Road. He, along with 11 others, was convicted last Tuesday.
Besides Jundal, six other convicts—Mohammed Aamir Sheikh, Billal Ahmed, Sayed Akif, Afroz Khan, Mohammed Aslam Kashmiri and Faizal Ataur Rehman (who is on death row in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings case)--were handed out life terms.
Pronouncing the sentence, the court said all seven convicts would serve imprisonment till their (natural) life.
Also, two other convicts--Mohammed Mujaffar Tanvir and Dr Mohammed Sharif–were handed out 14 years imprisonment, while three others–Mushtaq Ahmed, Javed Ahmed and Afzal Khan—were awarded eight years’ imprisonment.
There were a total of 22 accused in the case, of whom eight were acquitted and trials of two others were separated.
On May 8, 2006, the seizures started in Aurangabad and then spread to Khultabad, Yeola and Malegaon and a total of 16 AK-47 rifles, 3,200 live cartridges, 43 kg of RDX and 50 hand grenades were sized.
Soon after the seizures began, Jundal got the wind of it and escaped to Bangladesh and from there to Pakistan, where he joined his Lashkar-e-Toiba bosses. They wanted to create communal disharmony by targeting leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, and VHP leader Pravin Togadia in the wake of the 2002 communal riots. Jundal faced trial after he was brought here from Saudi Arabia in 2012.
DH News Service