New Delhi, Oct 28: The Delhi High Court today asked sessions court to file a status report on the implementation of its order for a day-to-day trial in the red fort shootout case in which a two-member Lashkar-e-Toiba squad had stormed the historic monument here and killed two armymen and a civilian three years ago. The direction came from Justice S K Agrawal during hearing on bail applications of accused Shahanshah Alam and Sadaqat Ali which was adjourned to December 4 pending report from the trial court.
Justice Agrawal, who had last month also ordered setting up of a special court to try the case, said "if suitable progress is not made, the registrar general may be asked what action has been taken on the high court's directive".
While issuing directions to the registrar general in this regard, Justice S K Agarwal had kept the matter pending before himself so as to monitor the progress of the case.
The case is hanging fire since January 7 when the trial court framed charges against 11 persons including the prime accused and Pakistani national Arif alias Ashfaq and his alleged Indian wife Rehmana Yusuf Farooqi. All the accused had pleaded "not guilty" to the charges.
Ashfaq was charged with waging war against the government of India (Sec 121-A), Criminal Conspiracy (Sec 120-B) Murder (Sec 302), Cheating (Sec 420), Forgery (Sec 468) and using as genuine a forged document (Sec 471) under IPC. Besides, he was charged under Section 14 of Foreigners Act, Sections 4 and 5 of Explosives Act as also Arms Act.
Bureau Report