Lucknow: A Special Court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has convicted two more accused in the Lucknow Al-Qaeda terror conspiracy case, bringing the total number of convicted individuals in the matter to three.
The court found Mohd. Mustaqueem and Shakeel, both residents of Lucknow, guilty under Section 25(1B)(a) of the Arms Act, read with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The Special Court sentenced each of them to 20 months of imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹5,000.
This judgment follows an earlier conviction delivered on 30 October 2025, when the court held Mohammad Moid, also from Lucknow, guilty in the same case. The case stems from the 11 July 2021 arrest of two suspected members of the banned terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS).
Investigators had acted on intelligence inputs indicating that Umar Halmandi, an Al-Qaeda operative based along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was radicalising and recruiting local youth for the Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The probe revealed that Umar was coordinating activities in Lucknow with the objective of preparing operatives to carry out terror attacks in several Uttar Pradesh cities ahead of Independence Day 2021.
Following extensive investigations, the NIA filed a main chargesheet and a supplementary chargesheet against a total of six arrested accused in the case. The trial continues for the remaining accused.
