The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a review petition filed by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq against the death penalty awarded to him in the 2000 Red Fort attack case that left three people, including two army jawans, dead.

Pakistani national Md. Arif, from Abbottabad (the same military cantonment town where Osama Bin Laden was found hiding), was one of the 6 terrorists who had sneaked into the Red Fort on December 22, 2000 and opened indiscriminate fire on the guards of the seventh battalion of Rajputana Rifles. The Army personnel retaliated but the terrorists managed to escape.

The Indian State regards the Red Fort as the seat of its power and the PM addresses the nation on Independence Day from its ramparts.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi said, “We have accepted the prayers that electronic records must be placed in consideration. His guilt is proved. We affirm the view taken by this court and reject the review petition.”

Interestingly, the apex court seems to have stayed his execution twice – once in 2007, and then another time in 2014. In between, the SC also upheld the death penalty in 2011. The capital punishment for the terrorist was first announced by a sessions court in 2005, and later affirmed by the Delhi High Court.

Md. Arif and his Indian wife Rehmana Yousuf Farooqui were arrested on Dec 26, 2000 following an encounter in Jamia Nagar area of south Delhi. In 2005, a trial court convicted 6 others besides Arif – Srinagar-based father-and-son duo Nazir Ahmed Qasid and Farooq Ahmed Qasid (for life); Arif’s wife, Babar Mohshin Bhagwala, Sadakat Ali and Matloob Alam (7 years) – while acquitting 4 accused.

However, in 2007 the Delhi HC set aside the conviction of the 6 others for ‘lack of evidence’ while affirming the death penalty handed to Arif. Another suspected LeT operative involved in funding the Red Fort attack, Srinagar-based ‘businessman’ Bilal Ahmad Kawa, was apprehended in 2018 at Delhi airport. However, within a month he was granted bail by a Delhi court. No further updates are available on his case.

Going by our judiciary’s track record, this might not be the last appeal this dangerous Pakistan terrorist and his legal team get to file. An attempt for a Presidential Pardon will surely be made, if not already exercised. Even if his execution date is announced sometime in the near future, in all probability we will witness another last-minute clemency appeal by influential Lutyens’ lawyers like the 2015 mid-night hearing in SC that Anand Grover and others managed to obtain for 1993 blast convict Yakub Memon.