NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted bail to an accused in a case related to allegedly raise funds for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) through their operatives based in Pakistan and other countries for militant activities in India.
A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma allowed the appeal of Javed Ali challenging a trial court’s order which had denied him bail in April.
The high court noted that the accused is in judicial custody since November 10, 2019 and out of 221 witnesses cited by the prosecution in the chargesheet, only nine have been examined so far. Therefore, the trial is likely to take some time to conclude, it said.
“In the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, this court is of the considered opinion that the appellant (Ali) has been able to satisfy the requirement of Section 43D (5) of the UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act] for grant of bail,” the bench said.
Ali was arrested in November 2019 for his alleged role in funding an LeT operative Sheikh Abdul Nayeem alias Sohel Khan, who was arrested and chargesheeted for alleged criminal conspiracy to carry out subversive activities in India along with his associates.
The NIA had alleged that investigation has revealed that Ali was affiliated to proscribed militant organisation LeT and he was involved in arranging funds through Hawala channels from Saudi Arabia to Muzaffarnagar in UP in 2017 and which were received by Nayeem.
The agency had said that the funds were used for carrying out recce in various places of India to recruit militants for LeT and identify soft targets including foreign nationals and tourists.
The high court, in its order said, besides one failed transaction of money transfer, no other circumstance or transaction has been placed on record by the prosecution to show that Ali was in any way responsible for providing funds to Nayeem.
The court said it has been the case of the prosecution that Ali was dealing in money being sent through hawala channels and the person who was collecting and disbursing money was turned approver and later discharged.
