An Ahmedabad court acquitted six persons for lack of evidence, on Friday, accused of having links with terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba and hatching a conspiracy to blow up some buildings in the city.
District Judge G N Patel cleared the accused as there was no sufficient evidence to prove the charges brought against them by Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist squad. The ATS had arrested Nooruddin, Peer Ali, Haarish, Junaid, Zahid Khan of Ahmedabad and Altaf Sheikh, a Vadodara resident, in 2006.
Three years ago, ATS had filed a complaint against the six, saying they had links with the Pakistan-based terror outfit. It further said the suspects had surveyed some city buildings and hatched a conspiracy to bomb them. Peer Ali had gone to Hyderabad to collect explosives prior to his arrest in February 2006, the ATS had said.
Defence laywers B M Gupta and C B Gupta argued that charges against their clients were false. C B Gupta said during cross-examination, the jail authorities had confirmed that Ali was in Sabarmati Central Jail during the period when ATS claims he was in Hyderabad to collect explosives.
According to him, some 23 witnesses were examined during the trial and five other persons still shown as absconders in the chargesheet filed by the ATS.