A 37-year-old madrasa teacher who spent 10 years in jail under the anti-terror law has been acquitted by a Cuttack court. The court held that the prosecution had "failed miserably" to prove any of its charges despite examining 46 witnesses and relying on 55 documents.
The judge, Manas Ranjan Barik, acquitted Mohammad Abdur Raheman Alli Khan of all charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Section 124-A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code.
The prosecution had accused Raheman of recruiting youth for Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and charged him with terrorism, terror funding, and recruiting youth for a terror group.
However, the judge trashed the prosecution case, blaming the police for only offering "bald statements" about Raheman's alleged membership of AQIS, his alleged connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zakir-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and his purported travel to Pakistan without producing a single document to support any of it.
The court also found that the investigating officer had not examined a single depositor to Raheman's personal bank accounts or to the Al-Haramain Trust account, and had not traced a single transfer from the trust account to any organisation or individual for any illegal purpose.
Seventeen of the 46 prosecution witnesses turned hostile, with many saying Raheman only imparted Islamic teachings and he had never heard him speak against any religion.
