On 6th May, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court in New Delhi handed down varying prison terms to five accused including a Kashmiri couple in a case concerning a plot by the outlawed Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) group to propagate the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and incite terror in India through violent acts.
The convicts include 36-year-old Jahanzaib Sami from Srinagar, having multiple names such as Dawood Ibrahim, Xaib, Abu Muhammed Al-Hind, and Abu Abdulla. The others are Jahanzaib’s wife Hina Bashir, a native of Kashmir; Abdullah Basith, a resident of Hyderabad; and Sadiya Anwar Shaikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri, both from Pune. They are charged under various sections for their alleged association with the banned Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an affiliate of the ISIS. They were charged with conspiring to generate disaffection against the government, promoting enmity among different religious communities and carrying out subversive activities.
Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh, from Okhla Vihar, Jamia Nagar were taken into custody by the Delhi Police Special Cell on 8th March 2020, on charges that they had connections with the ISKP, an ISIS front. The two intended to carry out anti-national and subversive activities in India. On 20th March of the same year, NIA re-registered the case and began its inquiry. The agency also apprehended Sadiya Anwar Shaikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri during the inquiry from Pune on 12th July 2020.
The NIA court sentenced accused Jahanzaib Sami who pleaded guilty to a range of jail terms, from 3 to 20 years, including a fine, for offences under sections 17, 18, 38, and 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) as well as sections 120B and 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in its ruling. He was accused of plotting to create a caliphate in India and of organizing 100 Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) explosions across the nation in a single day.
Additional sessions judge Chander Jit Singh observed, “For any organisation to survive, continue and act to achieve its objectives, availability and movement of funds is one of the most important factors. In absence of funds, despite having the most dedicated cadre, an organisation cannot inch forward. Therefore, to say that funds are the lifeline of an organisation would not be an exaggeration.” According to the NIA, the perpetrator incited the minority community by disseminating hateful slogans, drawing graffiti in public areas and posting it on social media and global media sites.
The court added, “Convict Jahanzaib Sami was also involved in procuring arms, remote of IED, and suicide jackets. Convict was also involved in raising funds through Bitcoin, which is a veiled method of raising funds online, therefore, he can be said to be a person of reasonable intelligence who cannot take shelter under the arguments of not understanding the impact of his (mis)deeds.”
“NIA investigations had revealed that the accused was also raising, receiving and providing funds through cryptocurrency to promote the ideology of ISIS, a banned global terror outfit. Sami was also involved in exploiting the sentiments of gullible youth to fuel the anti-CAA/NRC (Citizenship Amendment Act/National Register of Citizens) protests,” the agency noted. According to sections 38 and 39 of the UAPA, the second accused Hina Bashir Beigh has been sentenced to seven years in prison for each of the two offenses. She had admitted to being an ISIS member and to have assisted her husband in finding others who shared her beliefs to further the terrorist group’s evil plans against India.
Abdullah Basith has been sentenced to the time he has already served after being found guilty under sections 38 and 39 of the UAPA. A self-confessed ISIS member, according to the NIA probe, he supported Jahanzaib Sami in compiling the ISIS magazine “Voice of Hind.” Furthermore, accused Sadiya Anwar Shaikh was determined culpable of violating sections 38(2) and 39(2) of the UAPA as she professed to be an ISIS member and attempted to unite all terrorist organizations under the ISIS banner. She was sentenced to seven years in prison for each of these crimes. “She had also tried to procure a suicide jacket through accused Jahanzaib Sami, the NIA probe in the case has revealed,” the press release read.
According to sections 17, 38, and 39 of the UAPA, Nabeel Siddick Khatri has been pronounced responsible and faces sentences of 15, 8 and 8 years, respectively, for giving Jahanzaib Sami money to buy weapons. He also carried out pre-emptive bombings to advance ISIS ideology in collusion with Jahanzaib Sami. If he does not pay the penalty imposed under section 17 of the UAP Act, he will be sentenced to an additional two years in jail or an amount of Rs. 2.5 lakh.
August 2020 also marked the arrest of Abdur Rahman, also known as Dr Brave, following an additional probe. He is still on trial. An MBBS student from Bengaluru, he travelled to Syria in December 2013 after being radicalized by the other accused individuals. He had taken part in a number of ISIS terrorist operations in Syria and had gained information on how to create both a laser-guided anti-tank missile software for ISIS and a medical application for treating ISIS terrorists. NIA filed a charge sheet in this matter under the number RC-11/2020/NIA/DLI on 20th March 2020 and a supplemental charge sheet on 12th January 2021.
