The prosecution’s case is that Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, a native of Beed district of Maharashtra, was driving a car carrying five boxes of arms, ammunition and explosives, and when he reali
The prosecution’s case is that Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, a native of Beed district of Maharashtra, was driving a car carrying five boxes of arms, ammunition and explosives, and when he realised an ATS team was chasing him, he changed his destination and drove to Malegaon where, with the help of other accused persons, he concealed the consignment and ran away after abandoning the car. He later went to Pakistan via Bangaladesh and joined Lashkar-e-Taiyaba.
Though he has been convicted in the Aurangabad arms haul case, he is also facing trial in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which left 166 dead and hundreds injured, while two cases in Delhi and one in Nashik (the Nashik Police Academy attack conspiracy) have also been registered against him.
After conviction, when Jundal was called to the witness box as a chance to request leniency in sentencing, he first stood silently while covering his face with one hand, smiled at the judge and then started speaking in Marathi. He told the judge that he was being treated like an animal in jail because he was kept in a dark, closed cell where he could not even figure out if it was day or night. “I have faced mental and physical trauma due to solitary confinement and due to this I am undergoing mental treatment,” said Jundal, adding that he had fasted in protest for 10 days and later for 47 days, after which he was shifted to normal barracks. He said that his brother-in-law had divorced his wife only after three months of marriage due to his arrest. According to him, there was no criminal case against him before 2006 but the police had suddenly booked him for various cases later for reasons best known to them. He requested the judge to sentence him for the period he had already undergone in prison.
