A session’s court in Bengaluru sentenced a Kashmiri youth Bilal Ahmed Kota to life imprisonment for allegedly plotting to carry out militant attacks in ‘Silicon city’ as a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit operative.However the family members of Bilal Ahmed alleged that Bengaluru police framed him in false cases at a time when he was doing a good business in the city.Bilal Ahmed Kota a resident of Sadrabal Dargah was arrested by Karnatka police in December 2005 and since then he has been languishing in Bengaluru Jail while due to lack of sources and influence, his family is unable to visit him,” said his brother Hilal Ahmed to news agency CNS.He said that his brother Bilal Ahmed Kota has been sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching a criminal conspiracy to attack IT firms and vital installations in Bengaluru by sessions court Judge K. M. Hiremath.“The court, which convicted my brother on October 4 this month under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) also said that Bilal would also serve a 10-year jail term concurrently on another count,” he said adding that all the cases against Bilal are fabricated and he was punished for being Kashmiri.
“Bilal, a software engineer who like others went across the border in 1990 and after his return he was arrested and subsequently released. Shortly after his release he set up a Handicrafts shop in Bengaluru but in 2005 he was framed by Bengaluru police in a fabricated case,” he said adding that his father died with a hope that Bilal will be freed.“We have a daughter who was then just six months old when his father was arrested. Due to lack of sources we can’t afford a lawyer and we can’t visit Bengaluru on monthly basis. It is our humble appeal to the Government of India and State Government to shift my husband to Srinagar Central Jail,” Saliha, the wife of incarcerated youth said.When contacted, a top Bengaluru cop said that Karnatka anti-terrorism cell arrested Bilal in Bengaluru on January 5, 2007 as the prime accused and recovered in a search operation an AK-47 assault rifle, 200 rounds of live ammunition and five hand grenades from his rented house at Hosapete in Ballari district, a charge vehemently refuted by his wife who alleged that his husband was picked up just for being a resident of Kashmir. (CNS)