New Delhi: Observing that they conspired together with the aim to destabilise India, including by the collection and transmission of sensitive information related to the defence establishment and circulation of fake Indian currency notes, a Kolkata court Friday sentenced four men, including a Pakistani national, to prison. A fifth key accused died over the course of trial spanning 10 years.
The court also noted that the particular offence “strikes at the heart of national security” and the accused persons challenged the “very existence” of the state through “covert design and concerted subversion”.
The court was presiding over trial proceedings against Irshad Ansari (deceased in 2023), his son Ashfaque Ansari, their relative Mohammed Jahangir, and accomplices Saikh Badal and Ezaz alias Mohammed Kalam, identified as a Pakistani national.
Ashfaque, Jahangir and Kalam were awarded 10 years in prison, while Badal was sentenced to five years, under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Official Secrets Act, 1923, and Foreigners Act, 1946.
The case emanated from an FIR registered by the West Bengal Special Task Force (STF) in November 2015 against Irshad Ansari, Ashfaque Ansari and Mohammed Jahangir, and two others: Irfan Ansari and Salim. Based on interrogation of the accused on 29 November, 2015, the STF identified Irfan as the brother of Irshad, and Irfan and Salim were also identified as Pakistan-based handlers in the racket.
The accused were initially booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, while sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were added in the first chargesheet and those of the Official Secrets Act and Foreigners Act in the subsequent supplementary chargesheets. The names of Saikh Badal and Mohammed Kalam were added as co-accused later.
In its probe, the West Bengal STF found that Irfan, a spy of Pakistan’s intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had hatched a conspiracy to collect sensitive information related to ships, such as plans and diagrams, and of critical defence installations such as Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Netaji Subhas Dock in Kolkata.
The STF submitted in the chargesheet that the group of accused sent the information, including pictures and documents, to ISI handlers via phone numbers and email IDs, directly and through Irfan in Pakistan. The agency also found that the group of accused visited Pakistan and Bangladesh multiple times, along with sheltering other Pakistani nationals using forged Indian documents in Kolkata.
At the time of Irshad’s arrest in 2015, the STF recovered high quality fake Indian currency notes amounting to Rs 2 lakh, while Rs 1.5 lakh in such notes was recovered from Ashfaque. From Irshad, the STF also recovered hand-drawn maps of Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, where he was employed as a contract labour, and Netaji Subhas Dock.
“There is no doubt that the convicts conspired together to commit the offences with the aim to destabilise the safety and security of the country and also by circulation of FICN (fake Indian currency notes) to destabilise the economy of the country,” chief judge at the Calcutta sessions court, Sukumar Ray, said in the order.
“Added to this is the fact that they conspired to siphon out sensitive drawings of defence establishments for some ulterior motive which they were prevented from achieving by their timely apprehension. One can only shudder to think what ultimate aim they could have achieved, had they been not apprehended timely.”
The court also asserted that modern-day terrorism has evolved from old methods and does not use the battlefield anymore; rather weaponises “clandestine networks, covert radicalisation, digital propaganda, and guerrilla tactics to destabilise the constitutional functionaries”.
In these circumstances, the court said, judicial response cannot be “tepid or indulgent”.
“In several nations—and, lamentably, in certain pockets of our own country—rebellion has masked itself under the deceptive cloak of ideology, ethnicity, or political grievance, while in substance it remains nothing but violent insurrection seeking to dethrone legitimate authority. The modern-day terrorist, unlike the insurgent of old, eschews the battlefield…” said the judge.
“The intention to overthrow a constituted government through armed conflict, sabotage, or mass mobilisation of unlawful force has thus emerged as a grave and recurring threat, demanding unwavering judicial vigilance. When confronted with such conspiratorial endeavours, the judicial response cannot be tepid or indulgent,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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