Phone calls made by ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists to Afzal Guru minutes before the attack on Parliament coupled with circumstantial evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that he played an active part in the conspiracy, the Supreme Court had said.
The apex court, in its August 2005 verdict, had noted that just before the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, Guru had received calls on his mobile phone from one of the terrorists Mohammed — at 10:43 AM, 11:00 AM and 11:25 AM.
The bench said transcripts of the call details established that Mohammed had told Guru that he and the others were going to execute the plan.
The bench also took into consideration that Guru was instrumental in providing hideout and accommodation to the terrorists at Gandhi Vihar and Indira Vihar in north Delhi, and played a key role in arranging the logistics such as the purchase of chemicals used for preparing the explosives.
Guru had also identified the bodies of five terrorists, Mohammed, Haider, Hamza, Rana and Raja, killed during the gun battle by the security personnel inside Parliament complex.
The court had noted that the evidence had established that Afzal Guru was in contact with the terrorists and three other accused — S. A. R. Geelani, the Delhi University college lecturer, his cousin Shaukat Hussain Guru, and Afsan Guru alias Navjot Sandhu.
“As is the case with most of the conspiracies, there is and could be no direct evidence of the agreement amounting to criminal conspiracy. However, the circumstances cumulatively considered and weighed, would unerringly point to the collaboration of the accused Afzal Guru with the slain ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists. The circumstances, if considered together, as it ought to be, establish beyond reasonable doubt that Afzal Guru was a party to the conspiracy and had played an active part in various acts done in furtherance of the conspiracy,” a bench comprising Justice P. V. Reddi and Justice P. P. Naolekar had said in the judgement.
