Local court sends three terror accused to police custody

A local court here today sent three persons, allegedly associated with banned outfit Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), to police custody until June 16 in connection with a 2006 terror conspiracy case.
Metropolitan Magistrate B L Choithani granted four days' remand of Afrozkhan Pathan, Bilal Ahmed and Mustafa Sayyed from neighbouring Maharashtra who have been accused of being asociated with SIMI.
Probe agency Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) took custody of the trio from a Maharashtra jail and produced them before the metropolitan court today.
ATS sought a 14-day remand claiming the accused are SIMI members and it is required to find out how many others are still actively associated with the outfit.

ATS also contended it needs to interrogate the accused to know who were the others who had crossed over to Pakistan and obtained terror training conducted in the camps of terror outfits like Jamat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The defence counsel opposed the probe agency's submissions for remand contending the evidence of the investigators had not been considered earlier by the trial court.
"These three accused were lodged in a Maharashtra jail but ATS did not arrest them earlier and falsely branded them as absconders," advocate Khalid Sheikh told the court.
The case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was registered against the trio in 2006.