In a development that negates the theory that lack of education and poverty is the driving force for Muslims to become terrorists, the Jaipur district court in Rajasthan on 30 March sentenced 12 members of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to life imprisonment.
All of the convicts are engineering students. The court also acquitted the thirteenth accused person.
The Islamic jihadists were accused of working for the terrorist organisation, Indian Mujahideen, and were arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in 2014.
Six of the jihadists are from Sikar, three are from Jodhpur, one each from Jaipur and Pali, and one from Gaya in Bihar. However, one suspect who was acquitted is a resident of Jodhpur.
These engineering students were arrested after the Rajasthan anti-terror unit received inputs from the ATS in Delhi who had interrogated some terrorists in the national capital involving a seven-year old case on a SIMI sleeper cell in Rajasthan.
The convicted terrorists were found guilty of buying SIM cards by furnishing fake documents, raising funds to wage Jihad, providing safe houses and shelter to terrorists and conducting recce for bombings, reports The New Indian Express.
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