Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: July 21, 2003
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/030721/43/267vr.html
Two activists of the banned Students'
Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), including an American national, were
Monday jailed for seven years for distributing anti-Indian literature and
engaging in activities inimical to the country.
S.N. Dhingra, the special judges
for cases filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), passed the
sentences on Mohammed Yasin Patel, a U.S. citizen, and Mohammed Asraf Jaffary.
Patel shouted "Allah ho Akbar" as
the sentence was pronounced.
Speaking to reporters outside the
courtroom before he was led away to jail, he said: "If the Best Bakery
case was miscarriage of justice, this verdict was a travesty of justice".
His reference to a verdict passed
by a court in Vadodara in Gujarat acquitting 22 people who were alleged
to have torched 12 Muslims during the communal frenzy in the state last
year.
Patel, according to Dhingra, "is
a person who believes in an international Islamic order and wants to destroy
nationalism of the people here.
"He had chosen India as his workshop.
I consider that a person who chooses to become an American national and
works for the destruction for other countries does not deserve leniency,"
the judge observed.
About Jaffary, Dhingra said: "Despite
being an Indian, having been born and brought up in this country and having
liberties and freedom of this nation, he has been out to pollute the atmosphere
of the country by bringing hatred between communities and propagating destruction
of Indian nationalism and bringing an Islamic order in India."
SIMI was declared an unlawful organisation
in September 2001 for indulging in activities prejudicial to the country.
The ban order issued by the home ministry said SIMI was in close touch
with militant outfits and was supporting extremism in Jammu and Kashmir
and elsewhere.