For planning ‘lone-wolf’ attacks, 2 ISIS terrorists get imprisonment until death

The court of Additional Sessions Judge V J Kalotra convicted Ubed Ahmed Mirza and Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 121-A (sedition) and 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with government of India) of the Indian Penal Code as well as under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

Speaking to The Indian Express, Special Public Prosecutor Paresh Pandya said, “The court upheld the deposition of 75 witnesses, who also included ATS officers… The phones, laptops and pen drives found on the accused established their plans to carry out lone-wolf terror attacks. They had also been in touch with people in other cities and visited Hyderabad, Bengaluru and West Bengal to procure weapons and recruit radicalised youth as per the ISIS ideology.”
Pandya added that four minors, who were recruited from Kolkata by the accused, had turned prosecution witnesses during the trial.

It added that the accused had planned to escape to Jamaica – where absconding radical preacher Abdullah el-Faisal is believed to be hiding – after carrying out the attacks, beginning with a synagogue in Ahmedabad.

Pandya said that the chargesheet had mentioned a WhatsApp chat between the convicts and an unidentified associate – code-named ‘Ferrari’ – planning an “assassination bid” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The chat mentioned quoted ‘Ferrari’ as saying, “Yeah, let’s take (PM) Modi out with a sniper rifle…”

The chargesheet further mentioned that Stimberwala had submitted his resignation at a hospital in Bharuch, where he worked as a lab technician. At Mirza’s direction, Stimberwala is also said to have taken “leave while still employed with the hospital to conduct a recce of the synagogue in Ahmedabad for the attack”, the chargesheet added, while also attaching Facebook chats between el-Faisal and the convicts.