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Pakistani terrorist gets death sentence
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 21
A Delhi Sessions Court has sentenced to death a Pakistani terrorist, Maqsood Ahmed, alias Ashraf Abbu Mujahid, for attacking a CRPF camp in the capital killing a jawan three years ago.

Terming his act as an act of “terrorism”, Additional Sessions Judge J.M. Malik in a judgement passed on Tuesday said “in order to castrate the terrorists, capital punishment is called for” in the case.

“The monstrosity of the accused to commit murder in a diabolical manner of a constable in a foreign land is not the figment of imagination or film story, but a fact of the modern times,” the court observed.

However, his accomplice Abdullah Mir, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir was acquitted by the court for lack of evidence. Mir was accused of bringing militants to Delhi from Kashmir.

Ahmed, hailing from Naya Janawalan in Miyawali district in Pakistan, has been found guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy under IPC and the relevant provisions of Arms and the Explosives Acts.

Accepting the prosecution contention that terrorism had to be crushed with a heavy hand and death penalty was the appropriate punishment in this case, the court also awarded him 20 years rigorous imprisonment under the Explosives Act and separate sentences of three, seven and 10 years under different provisions of the Arms Act. All these sentences would run concurrently.

The death sentence is subject to confirmation of the high court as per the provisions of the law, the trial judge said. CRPF jawan Nitin was killed on the spot when heavily armed Ahmed had attacked the CRPF camp at Jarodha Kalan on the outskirts of Delhi grievously injuring his colleague Fernandes by firing from his AK-56 rifle on the night of October 18, 2000.

Ahmed had sneaked into India crossing the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir to carry out subversive and destructive activities, the prosecution had said.

His accomplice, Mir, was arrested from Azadpur area of the capital in October 2001, which led to the arrest of Ahmed from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh in April 2002.