Suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, who allegedly masterminded the 26/11 terror attack, asked a Delhi court to have him shifted there to face a case pending in the Capital.
Jundal, who was on a fast against being lodged in a solitary confinement cell, where once the lone Pakistani gunman Ajmal Kasab had been kept, was produced before a Delhi court via video conferencing facility. In Delhi a basic conspiracy case of Indian Mujahideen is pending against him. It is being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
In the terror strike of November 26, 2008, Jundal has been accused of being one of the persons who guided the terrorists from a ‘control room’ in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
His lawyer in Delhi, Mahmood Pracha, said that the Mumbai police had told the NIA that it would be a risk to his life to shift him and take him to Delhi. But Pracha added that the reason may actually be that he is also an accused in the German bakery case and he is to yet face trial for it, although one Himayat Baig has been convicted and given death sentence, now under appeal and confirmation in the Bombay high court.
The Delhi court had wanted Jundal produced before itself as he faces another criminal case there. The jail authorities and police produced him digitally after the court had last month allowed a plea of the NIA that sought that proceedings be done via video-conference as it apprehended a threat to Jundal’s life.
NIA had chargesheeted Jundal for allegedly conspiring to carry out terror activities in India. The case was on hold since May 2013 as Jundal was not produced before the Delhi court. A May 2013 resolution of Maharashtra government had apprehended hat he could be assassinated or kidnapped by rivals during his transit from jail to court.
Jundal told District Judge Amar Nath that the trial in the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case in Mumbai, in which he is an accused, was nearing an end and he be taken to Delhi after that so that he can consult his defence counsel.
Jundal was arrested in 2012 while the German bakery trial was on and he was shown as absconding. But he was not joined into that trial and will now face a separate trial.
The charges against Jundal, who allegedly joined the LeT in 2005, include attempting to recruit men for LeT through the Internet, and conspiring to carry out terror activities in India.