The Hindu : 3 Pakistanis sentenced to death

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 28, 2002

National

National

3 Pakistanis sentenced to death

By Nirnimesh Kumar

NEW DELHI APRIL 27. A Delhi court today sentenced three Pakistani nationals to death in the sensational case of kidnapping of four foreign nationals in which the Pakistan-trained British national, Ahmed Omar Sayeed Sheikh, — who along with the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, Maulana Masood Azhar, and another was swapped for the release of passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines IC-814 plane in 1999, — was the main accused.

A total of 11 persons were accused in the case registered under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and the Arms Act.

The Special Judge, S.N. Dhingra, awarded the death sentence to Nazir Khan, Abdul Rahim and Naser Mahmood Sadozi and gave life sentence to Mahmood, Mohammed Sayeed and Narul Amil.

However, the court acquitted two of the accused — Haji Shamim and Mohammed Yami — as the Delhi police failed to prove the case against them.

Omar Sheikh, the main accused in the murder of the Mumbai-based correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, had been assigned the task of organising terrorist acts across India by the Pakistan-based terrorist organisations — Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jamait-e-Islami and Al-e-Hadees — and the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan.

In complicity with the other 10 accused, Omar Sheikh had kidnapped four foreign nationals — three British and one American — from Delhi and chained and confined them in hideouts in the Ghaziabad and Saharanpur districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The terrorists' plan went haywire when a police party headed by the Station House Officer of the Mussorie police in the Ghaziabad district, while probing a theft case reached the hideout where the American national, Bela Joseph Nuss, who had been befriended and kidnapped by Omar Sheikh from the Ajay Guest House in the Pahar Ganj area of central Delhi, had been chained and confined.

Omar Sheikh was arrested outside the hideout later in the day following a shootout with two constables of the Uttar Pradesh police who had been deployed there with the expectation that some more terrorists might visit the place.

But police did not lower the guard following the arrest of the main accused. They arrested Abdul Rahim and Sayeed Ahmed late in the night when they had come there in a van.

One of the accused, Sayeed Ahmed, led a police party to where the three British nationals were kept. In the exchange of fire between the terrorists and police, two policemen and a militant were killed while the other militants escaped. However, police rescued the British nationals — Christopher Miles Crosten, Rhys Curjel Partridge and Paul Benjamin Rideout.Thereafter, the Delhi police raided various terrorists hideouts in the Capital.

Awarding the death sentence to the three of the six accused, the judge said: "As the terrorist acts committed by accused Nazir Khan, Abdul Rahim and Naser Mohammed Sodozi of kidnapping the foreigners and making them hostage resulted into the death of two police officials, I sentence these three accused persons to death...''

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