The trial against alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Abu Jundal, who is accused of teaching Hindi language and local customs to ten terrorists involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is set to resume after a seven-year hiatus. The High Court on Monday quashed the special sessions court's order to make confidential documents related to the case available to the accused, paving the way for the hearing of the case against Jundal, which had been pending for seven years.
The police, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of External Affairs had approached the High Court seeking a stay and quashing of the special court order. A single bench of Justice R. M. Laddha upheld the petition and set aside the order of the Special Sessions Court. Due to this petition, the hearing of the case against Jundal was pending since 2018.
He is also accused of teaching Hindi to ten terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab, who attacked Mumbai, and giving them all the information related to Mumbai so that they could easily blend in with the people there. The government claims that Jundal is providing all the information to all the terrorists from Pakistan via satellite phones. Also, a special team of Delhi Police had arrested Jundal from outside Delhi airport and produced him before a magistrate. It was also claimed that he was then handed over to Mumbai Police for investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks.
In his application filed in the sessions court, Jundal claimed that he was illegally detained, arrested and brought to India by Delhi's Special Cell and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers while he was living in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, Jundal claimed that the news of his arrest outside the Delhi airport was false. In his own defence, he had filed an application under Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking the provision of travel documents from the Indian investigating authorities.
The lower court had accepted his application and ordered the Ministry of External Affairs, Mumbai Police, Jet Airways, etc. to provide the documents he had sought. That decision was challenged in the High Court by the Delhi Police and central ministries.
In addition, Delhi Police, National Investigation Agency (NIA), police in Maharashtra, Bengaluru and Gujarat have also registered cases against Jundal for terrorist activities. Jundal was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 by a special court set up under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MOCCA) in the 2006 Aurangabad arms cache case.
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