With the last three cases under POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) slated for sentencing on Thursday and Friday,the anti-terror law will come to an end in Delhi,six years after it was repealed. Among those to be sentenced are six men charged with plotting the kidnapping of cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. While five Jaish-e-Mohammad men were convicted on Monday,an associate of the Harkat-ul-Ansar and Hizbul Mujahideen was convicted on Tuesday and six Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) men were held guilty ten days ago all by a city court (Tis Hazari) of Additional Session Judge R K Gauba. Enacted in 2002 when the BJP-led NDA government was in power,the Act was repealed in 2004 by the UPA government following a poll promise. Gauba convicted the five JeM members,including two brothers,for waging war against the country under Section 121 (A) of IPC,various sections of POTA and Explosives Substances Act. The five Noor Mohammad Tantre,Pervaiz Ahmed Mir,Feroz Ahmed Bhat,Atiq-uz-Zama and Raees-uz-Zama were arrested in August 2003 from Delhi and Secunderabad. They will be sentenced on Thursday. On Tuesday,the court convicted one Zafar Umar Khan under Section 22 (2) of POTA and Section 25 of the Arms Act. Zafar,a resident of J&K,was held in May 2005 from near the Vir Bhumi in Delhi when he was allegedly accepting hawala money. Police said Rs 4 lakh and a pistol were found on Zafar. On December 24,six HuJI men were found guilty under POTA for hatching a conspiracy to kidnap Tendulkar and Ganguly. With these convictions,the stringent law finally came to an end in Delhi. There is no POTA case left now, Defence lawyer S M Khan told Newsline. The law ran into controversies from the time it was enacted with rights groups opposing its strict provisions and saying that on the pretext of curbing terror,it curtailed constitutional rights of an accused. The Supreme Court,however,upheld the Act in 2003 in the PUCL and others vs Union of India case,noting that the law is fully constitutional and within the competence of Parliament to enact it. The constitutional validity of Section 14 of POTA was challenged that it gave unlimited powers to the investigating officer to force any person to furnish information if it would be useful for the purpose of the Act. The petitioners argued that the provision did not exclude even lawyers or journalists and violated Articles 14,19,20 (3) and 21 of the Constitution. The apex court,however,rejected the contention.
