A Delhi court on Wednesday discharged Mohammed Ahsan Dar, a suspected aide of Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, in an 18-year-old Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act case.
A special TADA court let off Dar, saying there was no prima-facie evidence against the accused in the matter as the Central Bureau of Investigation had already filed a closure report.
"There is no evidence against the accused to proceed with the trial since the CBI has already filed a closure report in the case," the special TADA court said.
The CBI had sought closure of the case against Dar on the ground that it had failed to get a confessional statement on the charges levelled against him of receiving money from Salahuddin.
Dar, along with Salahuddin, was wanted in the case registered under TADA for allegedly abetting terror activities in the country.
He was accused by the CBI of receiving USD 10,000 (about Rs 4.64 lakh) and a letter from Salahuddin in the first information report registered on April 20, 1991.
Dar, 53, who hails from Baramullah and evaded arrest for a long time, was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police on January 14, 2009, and later quizzed by the investigating agency after being taken into three-day custody in June.
The CBI had got Dar declared proclaimed offender from a court on December 19, 1993. The agency later made a volte-face saying he was not chargesheeted as no incriminating materials could be found.
The police had initially arrested two of Dar's accomplices Ashfaq Hussain Lone and Shahbuddin Ghouri from the capital in 1991, as they were going to hold a meeting at the office of Jamaat-e-Islami to step up terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet against the two under the Indian Penal Code and the TADA.
The designated TADA court had in July 1998 awarded Lone, HM's deputy chief of intelligence, and Ghouri, an MPhil student from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, a seven-year prison term.
In its closure report, the CBI said the only evidence against Dar, was in the form of confessional statements of Lone and Ghouri under Section 15 of the TADA, which can only be used in a joint trial with the accused.