New Delhi: While granting bail to a person charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Delhi high court has said that merely because the person downloaded pictures of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and Islamic State flags would not be sufficient to designate him as a terrorist.
A division Bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain, in its order, said, “Merely because the mobile device of the appellant was found carrying incriminating material, including photographs of terrorist Osama bin Laden, Jihad Promotion, ISIS flags etc., and he was also accessing lectures of hard-liner/Muslim preachers, would not be enough to brand him as a member of such terrorist organisation, much less his being acting in furtherance of its cause.”
The bench was hearing the bail application of one Ammar Abdul Rahiman, who was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in August 2021. According to NIA, Rahiman had been radicalised by the ideology of the terrorist group Islamic State, and had entered into a criminal conspiracy to migrate to Islamic State-controlled territories in South-Central Asia “for the establishment of Caliphate and to carry out the activities of ISIS in India”.
It also went on to allege that Rahiman had downloaded Islamic State-related videos and Instagram videos showing “brutal killings” using the screen recorder option. On the photos of Bin Laden and Islamic State flags which were found on his mobile phone, it concluded that it showed his radical mindset and association with the terror group.
“Such type of incriminating material, in today’s electronic era, is freely available on World Wide Web and mere accessing the same and even downloading the same would not be sufficient to hold that he had associated himself with [the Islamic State]. Any curious mind can access and even download such content,” the court said.
“At best,” the court said, adding, “the appellant was highly radicalised and had downloaded pro-ISIS material and was accessing the sermons of Muslim [hardliners] but that would not be enough to attract Section 38 and Section 39 of UAPA.”
Section 38 UAPA is an offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation and Section 39 Offence relating to support given to a terrorist organisation.
