'Sad state of affairs': Delhi court discharges man booked under UAPA for possessing illegal arms

New Delhi: A Delhi court has discharged a man accused in a terror-related case lodged under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, terming his indictment a sad state of affairs and high-handedness of police officers, and noted that the provision invoked against him was only due to the recovery of illegal arms from his house. Special NIA Judge Parveen Singh made the observations after taking into account submissions of the NIA, which admitted that the only evidence against the accused - Adish Kumar Jain - was the possession of illegal arms. “This is a very surprising submission which has been made and it reveals a sad state of affairs where the high-handedness of police officers makes a person suffers for the crime which he has not committed as just by the reason of recovery of illegal arms/weapons from his house, the person has been arrested and charge-sheeted under the stringent provisions of UAPA and has been claimed to be involved in terror activities,” the court said. The accused was booked along with others under the UAPA. Apart from Jain, the court also discharged other co-accused, including an approver Abdul Samad, Dinesh Garg, and Gul Nawaz against whom NIA had alleged terror funding and other terrorism-related offences. The NIA had alleged that Jain, along with co-accused Dinesh Garg, had in active connivance with their associates in Saudi Arabia, illegally received, raised, and collected terror funds and was engaged in gold smuggling activities. The court also noted in its order dated 10 June that there was no evidence at all against accused Adish Kumar Jain of either being involved in the conspiracy or otherwise being involved in any terrorist activities or activities related to terror funding. On Court’s query as to why Jain was arrayed as an accused in the case, it was submitted by the NIA that he would not have been made an accused but for the recovery of illegal arms from his house. According to the NIA, in 2017, co-accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem was arrested at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, for his involvement in raising funds from the main operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) based Pakistan for terrorist activities in India. During the investigation, it was revealed that some other co-accused had provided shelter, logistics, and mobile phones to Naeem, raised funds for him, and also facilitated him in engaging fake identity, it claimed. It was further the case of the prosecution that Abdul Samad, Dinesh Garg, and Adish Kumar Jain were involved in receiving, collecting, and delivering funds received from Saudi Arabia. NIA had seized illegal arms and ammunition from the residence of Jain, including one pistol, along with one magazine and ammunition. The court, however, ordered the framing of charges under UAPA and IPC against five accused persons - Shaikh Abdul Naeem, Bedar Bakht, Towseef Ahmad Malik, Habib-ur-Rehman, and Javed. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.