HC quashes 2012 terror plot accused’s petition to dismiss case

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has dismissed the petition filed by Dr Sabeel Ahmed, also known as Motu Doctor, an accused in the 2012 terror plot case.

He faces charges of terror activities in a case registered at the Basaveshwaranagar police station in Bengaluru pertaining to a conspiracy hatched by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), in its chargesheet, stated that the accused had procured illegal arms and ammunition for targeted killings of important Hindu community personalities in Bengaluru, Hubballi in Karnataka, Nanded in Maharashtra, and Hyderabad in Telangana.

The case was registered in August 2012 and transferred to the NIA in November 2012. The NIA filed the chargesheet against other accused persons, and Ahmed was detained upon his deportation from Saudi Arabia in 2020. The NIA pressed charges against him in a supplementary chargesheet filed in 2021.

Sabeel had moved an application before the special court seeking discharge from the case, contending that he had been acquitted by a Delhi court in connection with a case based on identical allegations and the same witnesses. The Delhi police special cell case in 2017 involved alleged terror funding.

On August 19, 2023, the special court rejected his application, prompting Ahmed to move the high court.

The special public prosecutor for the NIA submitted that the allegations in both cases are different. While the Delhi case involved raising funds for and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, the Bengaluru case involved participation in terror activities, specifically targeted killings.

“He was actively participating in several meetings connected to the commission of the crime,” the prosecution said.

A division bench comprising Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar and Justice JM Khazi noted that the offences charged against the petitioner before the Delhi court were not the same as those invoked against him in the Bengaluru case.

"The acts may have similarities, but they are not the same. Some of the witnesses in both trials may be the same, but that is not grounds for invoking Section 300 of the CrPC. The special court's order has clearly delineated the differences in allegations made in both cases. The two cases are factually different and separate. There is no error in the impugned order,” the bench said.

A resident of Banashankari in Bengaluru, Ahmed is the younger brother of Kafeel Ahmed, who carried out a suicide bomb attack at the Glasgow airport in June 2007. No one died in the incident, except Kafeel, who succumbed to severe burns weeks later.