• Supreme Court upholds Arif’s sentence
• Arif, LeT terrorist, Red Fort
• Constitution bench grants Arif reconsideration

Supreme Court upholds Arif’s sentence

Pakistani Terrorist on Death Row Gets 5 Chances to Escape Execution

In November 2022, the Supreme Court upheld Mohammed Arif alias Ashfaq’s death sentence by dismissing his review petition. President Droupadi Murmu subsequently declined his mercy plea. Arif, a Pakistani terrorist, was convicted for his role in plotting an attack on Delhi’s Red Fort 24 years ago.

Arif, LeT terrorist, Red Fort

The attack on December 22, 2000, resulted in the deaths of three army personnel from the 7 Rajputana Rifles unit stationed within the Red Fort. Mohammed Arif, a Pakistani national and member of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), was arrested four days later. He was initially convicted of conspiring to attack the army personnel in October 2005 and subsequently sentenced to death.

Arif, along with three other LeT terrorists, entered India in 1999. The plan to attack the Red Fort was conceived in a house in Srinagar.

The three other terrorists—Abu Shaad, Abu Bilal, and Abu Haider—who also infiltrated the monument, were killed in separate encounters.

In September 2007, the Delhi High Court upheld Arif’s death sentence, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2011. Following the dismissal of his review petition in August 2012, he filed a curative petition in January 2014.

In September 2014, a constitution bench of the Supreme Court ruled that all cases resulting in a death sentence by the high court must be reviewed by a bench of three judges.

Constitution bench grants Arif reconsideration

Prior to the September 2014 verdict, review and curative petitions of death row convicts were not conducted in open courts but were determined through chamber proceedings by circulation.

In January 2016, a constitution bench instructed that Arif had the right to request the reconsideration of the dismissal of his review petitions for an open court hearing within one month.