Amritsar: A district court in Punjab acquitted eight persons, including British national, Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi Johal, in a terror funding case by granting them ‘benefit of the doubt.’
In a 97-page order, the court gave accused Johal, Taljeet Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Dharaminder, Hardeep Singh, Anil Kumar, Jagtar Singh and Tarlok Singh a benefit of doubt for irregularities in the laid down procedures for prosecution in anti-terror law.
Additional sessions judge Harjeet Singh found the police investigation shoddy and lack of sanction to prosecute under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). “This court came to the conclusion that there is no valid sanction to prosecute the accused. Thus, all the accused are liable to be acquitted on this score alone under Sections 17,18,19,20 of UAPA,” the order read.
Johal and others were accused of being involved in targeted killings reported from April 2016 to October 2017, including the murder of RSS leader Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja (retd). Johal was arrested in November 2017 and has been in jail since then.
Johal is unlikely to walk out of jail as he is still facing trials in several other anti-terror cases. Police, in its chargesheet, had claimed that Johal had admitted to meeting Harminder Singh alias Mintu (now dead), then chief of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) in France and giving him GBP 3,000. Mintu allegedly provided GBP 800 for procuring weapons used in target killings in Punjab.
