President Droupadi Murmu has rejected a mercy petition filed by Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Mohammad Arif, alias Ashfaq, in the 2000 Red Fort attack case.
Two soldiers of the 7th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles and a civilian guard were killed in indiscriminate firing at the Red Fort on December 22, 2000. Arif from Pakistan’s Abbottabad, who planned the attack, and 10 others were convicted in the case.
In 2022, the Supreme Court had dismissed Arif’s petition to review his death sentence in the case.
The president received a mercy petition from Arif on May 15, according to a May 29 order from the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The plea was rejected on May 27.
The Delhi High Court had given the death sentence to Arif in 2007. He had filed a review petition then, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2011.
“It was an attack on Mother India,” the top court had said at the time. “This is apart from the fact that as many as three persons had lost their lives. The conspirators had no place in India. Appellant was a foreign national and had entered India without any authorisation or even justification.”
However, in 2016, the Supreme Court decided to re-hear his plea after it was decided that that review petitions filed in death sentence cases must be heard in open court.
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