The Delhi High Court has found four men guilty of planning to target the 2002 Republic Day parade to avenge the foiled Parliament House attack in December 2001. The High Court said the feeling that “terrorists could not take their defeat lying down” drove the four-member Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) hit squad to attempt to bomb the parade.

“It does appear to us that the task which the terrorists could not accomplish while attacking the Parliament House on December 13, 2001 was again attempted by this team, though they belong to a separate militant outfit — the LeT. The terrorists who had planned to capture or blow up the Parliament building belonged to a terrorist organisation called JKLF,” the Bench observed in an appeal filed by the “terrorists” against their conviction.

The 132-page judgment by a Division Bench of Justices B N Chaturvedi and P K Bhasin reveals that during the trial three of the four members of the hit squad claimed in their defence that they themselves were “victims of terrorists in Kashmir”, due to their families’ close allegiance to political parties.

The convicts are all in their 20s and residents of Anantnag in the Valley. They are Mohammed Afzal Kumhar, allegedly a junior engineer with the J-K Rural Development Department since May 1999, Adil Nazir Keen, Bilal Ahmed Mir, and Ansar Ahmed Dar.

Story of the ‘terrorists’

Kumhar told the special court that he came to Delhi on December 31, 2001 on “business”. Claiming to be a “victim of terrorism”, he said his grandfather was killed due to his affiliation with the National Conference.

... contd.