ISIS conspiracy case: Delhi court awards varying jail term to 13 persons

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Friday awarded varied jail terms to 13 persons for their affiliation to terror organisation ISIS and for hatching a conspiracy to establish its base in India by recruiting Muslim youth through social media platforms.

Special Judge Parveen Singh of the Patiala House Court sentenced the convicts for criminal conspiracy and other offences punishable under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Explosive Substances Act.

The court awarded them varying punishments. One person was sent to jail for 10 years, three convicts for seven years, one for six years and eight for five years.

The case was registered on December 9, 2015. During the course of investigation, searches were conducted in various cities, which led to the arrest of 19 accused persons. The NIA later filed a chargesheet against 16 persons in 2016-2017.

It was revealed that the accused persons had formed an organisation by the name of Junood-ul-Khilafa-Fil-Hind, a group seeking to establish Caliphate in India and pledging allegiance to ISIS, to recruit Muslim youth to work for ISIS and commit acts of terrorism in India at the behest of one Yusuf-Al-Hindi who was based in Syria and was purportedly the media chief of ISIS.

According to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), this is the first case in which the conspiracy of this magnitude involving online radicalisation was effected on cyber space in the aftermath of the declaration of Islamic Caliphate by Abu-Baqar-Al-Bagdadi in 2014.

"No terror organisation prior to the emergence of ISIS had used ICT (Information Communication Technology) on such a large scale to scout, recruit, train and motivate its cadre for the acts of terror.

"Utmost precaution was taken by them by using encrypted tools to keep the communication among the ISIS handlers and potential recruiters, both in India as well as abroad, secret," the agency had said in a statement. (IANS)

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