The High Court of Bombay has refused to grant bail to Kurla resident Anees Shakil Ahmed Ansari, a computer engineer convicted & sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to carry out a “lone wolf” attack on American School of Bombay in Bandra Kurla Complex.
A division bench of Justices Prakash D Naik & NR Borkar on Dec 14 rejected 33-year-old Ansari’s plea seeking suspension of sentence & bail during the pendency of his appeal against his conviction, primarily in view of the evidence available against him.
On Oct 18, 2014, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested Ansari, who was influenced by ISIS ideology, in connection with cyber terrorism. Investigation revealed that while working at a private firm in SEEPZ he had created social medical accounts & mail accounts in fictitious names & was in touch with several like-minded people.
ATS officials recovered Ansari’s social media communications & his conversations with one Omar Elhajj, a resident of the United States. Police alleged the computer engineer was in touch with Elhajj for 5 consecutive days & he had discussed methods of making bombs & tried to convince Elhajj to join him in an attack on the school.
The police said he had also shared several articles related to ISIS theories & ideology with Elhajj. During the probe, the IP address of Elhajj was traced to a location in the US, but the agency could not obtain any further information about him.
On Oct 21, 2022, the sessions Court convicted Ansari on the charge of cyber terrorism, under section 66F of the Information Technology Act, 2000, primarily on the basis of the chats retrieved from his computer & sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Ansari challenged his conviction before the high court last year. Recently, he filed a plea for bail during pendency of his appeal, contending that he had been behind bars for more than nine years & that he was erroneously convicted of cyber terrorism, as there was no evidence to prove the charge against him.
His counsel submitted that cyber terrorism is the use of computer network tools to harm or shut down critical national infrastructures such as energy, transportation, government operations, etc. but there was no material to constitute the offence defined under section 66F.
However, the argument failed to impress upon the bench. The court rejected the plea for bail, stating that adequate evidence was available on record against the convict.
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(With input from news agency language)
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