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July 19, 2001
0313 IST

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Two more chargesheeted in Red Fort
shootout case

Seven months after a two-member Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT) suicide squad stormed the historic Red Fort and killed two armymen and a civilian, Delhi police on Wednesday chargesheeted two more persons in the shootout case taking the total number of accused to eight.

In two supplementary chargesheets filed in the court of Additional Sessions Judge M S Sabbarwal, prosecution named one Matloob Alam alias Abbas of Meerut and Mool Chand Sharma, a resident of Badarpur in south Delhi.

Besides Sharma and Abbas, Pakistani national Afif alias Ashfaq, his Indian wife Rehmana Yusuf Farooqi, Babar Mohsin Bhagwala, Devender Singh, Shahanshah Alam and Rajiv Kumar Malhotra have been chargesheeted under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Arms Act and Explosive Substances Act.

They have been accused of murder, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and waging war against the country in connection with the December 22 attack on the 17th century historic monument.

Except Malhotra, all the accused are in judicial custody.

The court fixed August 21 for further proceedings after the Public Prosecutor sought time to study the chargesheets.

Earlier, following completion of pre-charge formalities by a magistrate, the case was assigned to Sabbarwal and arguments were supposed to commence on Wednesday.

Ashfaq, an LeT militant, and Rehmana were nabbed on December 26 following an encounter in Jamia Nagar in which another militant was killed. Rest of the accused were arrested later for allegedly helping the LeT militants.

Some more persons may be chargesheeted in the case, police sources said.

Proceedings for declaring seven more accused as proclaimed offenders had already been initiated as they were absconding, police had said.

They are Abu Haider, Abu Saad, Aabu Bilal, Abu Shaqeer, Billal Ahmed Kawa, Zahoor Ahmed Quasid and Sabir alias Sabirullah.

One another accused Sher Zaman Afghani was in custody in Tihar jail, while two others - Nazir Ahmed Qureshi and Farooq Ahmed Qureshi - were been in custody in Srinagar in connection with some other cases, the prosecution had informed the court.

Another two accused - Kushal Pal and Sadaquat Ali - had not been arrested.

Police had recovered one AK-47 assault rifle, used in the shootout, near Vijay Ghat behind the Red Fort and some Indian currency notes near Matia Mahal police picket from where the militants had fled after the incident.

Seventy-seven empty cartridges and 29 live ones of AK-47 rifles besides three magazines were also recovered from the scene.

The militants had sneaked into the Red Fort at around 2100 hours (IST) and started firing indiscriminately at the personnel of the Seventh Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles stationed there.

The case was registered at Kotwali police station in the Walled City on a complaint filed by Captain S P Patwardhan, adjutant of Seven Rajputana Rifles.

The prosecution has cited 162 witnesses in support of its chargesheet against the accused.

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