IISc attack: SC disinclined to interfere in conviction of 4 men

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its disinclination to interfere with the conviction and life term sentence awarded to four people in the Indian Institute Science (IISc) attack case of 2005.

A bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara, which had earlier sought a report from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to ascertain antecedents of the convicts, told their counsel, “We can't help you.” 

Representing the convicts, advocates Nitya Ramakrishnan, Sidharth Dave, Farrukh Rasheed and others, however, contended the trial court has sentenced them to seven years imprisonment but the High Court of Karnataka had enhanced it to life imprisonment by holding them guilty of conspiracy for waging war against the country.

The trial court's conviction for criminal conspiracy was set aside by the high court, they said.

The state government, represented by Additional Advocate General Devdutt Kamat, opposed their plea for enlargement by reducing their prison term to the period already served by them.

The counsel for the convicts sought to know the stand of the NIA and if it was being held against them. But, the bench declined to part with the NIA report, saying, “This was for our consideration. It is not held against you. We wanted to know some more information.”

On insistence by the counsel that they wanted to argue the matter on quantum of sentence, the bench agreed to put the matter for consideration after four weeks.

The convicts are Mohammed Razhur Rehman alias Umesh, a native of Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh, Afsar Pasha alias Basheeruddin, a resident of Lakkasandra in Bengaluru, Mohammed Irfan of Mulbagal in Kolar district and Nazmuddin alias Munna from Chintamani in Chikkaballapur district.

All the four are lodged in central prison, Vijaynagar. The Bengaluru police claimed all of them belonged to the banned terror outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In their appeal filed by advocate Rasheed, the petitioners contended the high court as well as the trial court had categorically found that there was no evidence to hold them guilty of the offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Among other grounds, they submitted that the police had failed to provide any material to connect them to the banned organisation, except the statements recorded by them, which could not be relied upon as evidence.