Eight members of Pakistan based terror organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), including three Pakistanis, were awarded life imprisonment by a local court in Jaipur on Wednesday, 6 December.
The LeT members were arrested in 2010 and 2011 by the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad. An additional district and sessions court in Jaipur pronounced the sentence.
The accused were awarded life imprisonment under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act along with a cash penalty of 3 lakh each, Mahaveer Jindal, special public prosecutor told reporters.
They were convicted under sections 13 (abetting unlawful activity), section 18 (punishment for conspiracy), section 18 (B) (recruiting for terror act) and section 20 (punishment for being member of terrorist gang or organisation) of the UAPA, he added.
The Pakistani LeT members Asgar Ali, Shakkar Ulla and Shahid Iqbal were accused of recruiting persons for various anti-national activities.
The other five accused are Babu alias Nishachand Ali, Hafiz Abdul, Pawan Puri, Arun Jain and Kabil, Jindal said.
Babu and Pawan Puri came into contact with Asgar Ali in Bikaner Jail, he said adding that Kabil came into touch with Shahid Iqbal in a Punjab jail.
All of them were in touch with a LeT commander based in Pakistan through mobile, Jindal said.
The Rajasthan ATS had swung into action on receiving an alert from central intelligence agencies intercepting telephonic conversation between the LeT men lodged in jails and Lashkar commander in Pakistan in 2010.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)