Court discharges Hizbul Mujahideen suspect after 18 years

New Delhi, Nov 11 (PTI) A Delhi Court Wednesday
discharged Mohammed Ahsan Dar, a suspected aide of Pakistan
based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, in an
eighteen-year-old Terrorists and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act case.
A Special TADA court let off Dar, saying there was no
prima-facie evidence against the accused in the matter as the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had already filed a
closure report.
"There is no evidence against the accused to proceed
with the trial since the CBI has already filed a closure
report in the case," the Special TADA court said.
The CBI had sought closure of the case against Dar on
the ground that it had failed to get a confessional statement
on the charges levelled against him of receiving money from
Salahuddin.
Dar, along with Salahuddin, was wanted in the case
registered under TADA for allegedly abetting terror activities
in the country.
He was accused by the CBI of receiving USD 10,000 and
a letter from Salahuddin in the FIR registered on April 20,
1991.
Dar, 53, who hails from Baramullah (in India's
northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir) and evaded arrest
for a long time, was arrested by Jammu and Kashmir police on
January 14, 2009, and later quizzed by the investigating
agency after being taken into three-day custody in June.


CBI had got Dar declared proclaimed offender from a
court on December 19, 1993. The agency later made a volte-face
saying he was not chargesheeted as no incriminating materials
could be found.
Police had initially arrested two of Dar's accomplices
Ashfaq Hussain Lone and Shahbuddin Ghouri from the capital in
1991 as they were going to hold a meeting at the office of
Jamaat-e-Islami to step up terror activities in Jammu and
Kashmir.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet against the two under
the Indian Penal Code and the TADA.
The designated TADA court had in July 1998 awarded
Lone, HM's deputy chief of intelligence, and Ghouri, an M Phil
student from Jawaharlal Nehru University here, seven years
prison term.
In its closure report, the CBI said the only evidence
against Dar, was in the form of confessional statements of
Lone and Ghouri under Section 15 of the TADA, which can only
be used in a joint trial with the accused. PTI ATP