Subversion of Justice

The Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) notes with extreme concern the imminent hanging of Mohd Arif alias Mohd Ashfaq, a Pakistani national for the 22 December 2000 attack on the Red Fort in which three army personnel of the 7th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles lost their lives. Arif was arrested on 25 December 2000 along with his wife Rehmana, and in October 2005 he was sentenced to death by the trial court for waging war against the State and conspiracy to commit murder. This sentence was upheld by the Delhi High Court in September 2007. Even though the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 2011, in April 2014 it stayed his death penalty on the grounds of the 13 years he spent behind bars.

In 2014, a petition filed by death row convicts, including Arif, on hearing their review petition in open courts, was granted by the Supreme Court. However, Arif’s petition was dismissed on the ground that his curative petition had already been rejected. In December 2014, a review petition challenging the above judgment was filed (Diary No 40122 of 2014).