December 12, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 7, 1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

NEW DELHI, Dec 11: A special court trying four people for last year’s attack on the Indian parliament, which led to a nuclear standoff with Pakistan, will give its verdict on Monday (Dec 16), judge S.N. Dhingra, said on Wednesday.

Dhingra was due to give his verdict on Wednesday, two days before the anniversary of the Dec 13 attack, but postponed it saying some more work was required to be done.

The four arrested were Mohammad Afzal, Shaukat Hussain Guru, his wife Navjot Sandhu alias Afshan Guru and S.A.R. Geelani, an Arabic lecturer at the Delhi University.

They are charged with harbouring and helping the alleged terrorists in their deadly plan. Five gunmen were killed in the attack. Several Indian guards had also died.

The prosecution says its case is watertight. The defence, on its part, insists that the police flouted several procedures and violated laws in trying to secure a conviction.

In the course of the five-month trial, the prosecution brought forward more than 100 witnesses to prove its case.

The defence team’s arguments were on two basic points: that the four were being framed by the police force, which was under pressure to deliver.

Also, in doing so it had violated several laws and procedures - a fact which was held up by the Delhi High Court, which disallowed the use of crucial telephonic transcripts as part of evidence in the POTA case.

POTA stands for the recently introduced Prevention of Terrorism Act.—J.N