Qaeda man Afroze gets seven years’ jail

The court sentenced him to five years’ rigorous imprisonment for planning to bomb several cities the 9/11 way and to seven years’ RI for forgery. Both sentences will run concurrently. He was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs 20,000.

Afroze’s elder brother Mohammed Farroque was acquitted of all charges. The police are still looking for Mubarak Musalman, their London-based maternal uncle, another accused in the case.

According to the prosecution, between 1997 and 2001, the three accused had conspired to hijack passenger planes and crash them into the House of Commons in London, the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US, the Rolta Towers in Australia and Parliament in New Delhi.

‘‘Uncle Mubarak Musalman told me to work for Al Qaeda, train as pilot. He sent me Rs 1.5 lakh by hawala. I met Mansoor Iliyaz, Al-Qaeda chief in Melbourne and the (9/11) suicide squad members. I was selected for targeting Parliament in London,’’ Afroze had said in his confession.

‘‘Unfortunately, the roots of an international conspiracy have not yet been traced as our counterparts abroad did not help us trace the bank accounts used by Afroze,’’ said Mumbai Commissioner M N Singh.

Arrested on December 4, 2002, Afroze — who contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2004 from Mankhurd and lost miserably — was also accused of forging his Higher Secondary Certificate so he could train as a pilot.

The police had initially booked him under POTA, but later revoked it.

Unshaven and looking tired, 29-yr-old Afroze had tears in his eyes as the judgment was passed. After getting bail in the case in 2003, he had been running a leather goods business.

Today, he was allowed to take lunch with his parents and wife — who had come with their seven-month-old son — before being led away by the police.

Afroze is probably the first Al Qaeda operative put behind the bars in India. The investigation encompassed three countries.

‘‘I will advise the state to appeal in the Bombay High Court as he was acquitted of the charge of ‘waging war against the nation’,’’ said special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam.