Tuesday, August 9 2005 16:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: A laptop, used by Jaish-e-Mohd terrorists to plan the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament, became a tool for Delhi Police unravel the conspiracy and also proved to be a clinching evidence on Mohmd Afzal's involvement resulting in confirmation of his death penalty by the Supreme Court.

The 271-page judgement given by a Bench comprising Justice P V Reddi and Justice P P Naolekar stated that the police recovered the laptop from Afzal when he was fleeing in a truck along with his cousin Shaukat, a co-accused in the case.

"The recovery of laptop from the truck in which Afzal and Shaukat travelled on being pointed out by them is a highly incriminating circumstance against them," said Justice Reddi, writing for the Bench.

It was established from the evidence that it was the same laptop which was used for the preparation of identity cards found on the person of the killed terrorists, who stormed the Parliament House, as well as stickers of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which were pasted on the windscreen of the car used by them to gain entry into the high-security zone.

"It admits of no doubt that the laptop, which must have been with the deceased terrorist Mohammed and others came into the custody of Afzal (and Shaukat) soon after the incident on December 13 and such possession has not been accounted for," the apex Court inferred.

The laptop, interestingly, contained all names used by Hindus. It had a file name 'Radhika.bmp' where in an identity card in the name of Sanjay Sharma was found having the address of 10, Christian Colony where Mohammed was putting up.

The other i-cards, recovered from the body of deceased terrorists were fake ones prepared from the same laptop.

The apex Court found that "the summary of important documents found on the laptop contains identity cards which were similar to those recovered from the deceased terrorists, ASF video files containing clippings of political leaders with Parliament in background shot from TV news channels and another file containing scanned images of front and rear view of i-card and a '.tmp' file containing design of MHA sticker."

After analysing the evidence collected by the Delhi Police, the Bench said "we hold that the laptop found in the custody of Afzal and Shaukat and the results of analysis thereof would amply demonstrate that the laptop was the one used by the deceased terrorists contemporaneous to the date of incident and it should have passed hands on the day of the incident or the previous day.

"The accused carrying the same with him soon after the incident furnishes cogent evidence pointing towards his involvement," the apex Court said.