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Synopsis

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court, Guwahati on May 23 convicted one Md. Saidul Alam in a conspiracy case related to the formation of a module of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), a banned terrorist organization, in Assam.

Alam has been sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment with fine.

Five persons were earlier chargesheeted by NIA on 11th March 2019, and two of them, identified as Md. Sahnawaj Alom @ Shahnawaj and Md. Omar Faruque @ Omar Faruk was convicted by the NIA Court on December 23, 2022.

The NIA investigations revealed that the three convicted accused had conspired with one Kamruj Zaman to establish an HM module in Assam. During 2017-2018, they organized a series of meetings in various mosques, such as Milonpur Masjid, Islampur Masjid, and Solmari Masjid, in and around the Jamunamukh area. The meetings were used to spread the banned outfit’s hardcore fundamentalist ideology, with speeches about alleged atrocities and Jihad. Youth attending these meetings were told about the need to raise a module of HM for committing terrorist acts in response to the alleged atrocities etc.

“Kamruj, Shahnawaz, and Omar had conspired to raise funds for procurement of arms and ammunition. Omar, along with another accused Jaynal Uddin, provided logistic support. To keep their communications a secret, Kamruj Zaman and Saidul Alam had also installed the Blackberry messenger (BBM) App on their mobile sets. Kamruj had used this app to stay in touch with Hizbul Mujahideen cadres in Jammu & Kashmir”, the NIA press release stated.

The investigations further stated that Saidul, along with Kamruj, Sahnawaz, and Omar, had also conspired to unleash bomb blasts and armed attacks on innocent civilians in the non-Muslim localities of Lumding and Hojai on Dussehra eve. They had also planned to procure arms and ammunition for these attacks.

As per the NIA press release, the case was initially registered at P.S. Jamunamukh, District Hojai, Assam under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and later the NIA re-registered the case on October 5, 2018.