A special NIA court in Guwahati awarded five-year rigorous imprisonment to one Md. Saidul Alam in connection with a case related to the formation of a module of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), a banned terrorist organisation.

According to official information, the NIA had recently filed a charge sheet on March 11 against five accused in the case.

Two accused, Md. Sahnawaj Alom alias Shahnawaj and Md. Omar Faruque alias Omar Faruk, were earlier held guilty in the case.

The NIA investigations have revealed that the convicted accused had conspired with one Kamruj Zaman to establish a HM module in Assam.

Between 2017 and 2018, they had organised a series of meetings in various mosques such as Milonpur Masjid, Islampur Masjid and Solmari Masjid, in and around Assam's Jamunamukh area.

The meetings were used to spread the banned outfit's hardcore fundamentalist ideology, with speeches about alleged atrocities and jihad. Youth attending these meetings were told about the need to raise a module of HM for committing terrorist acts in response to the alleged atrocities.

Kamruj, Shahnawaz and Omar had conspired to raise funds for procurement of arms and ammunition.

Omar, along with another accused Jaynal Uddin, provided logistic support. To keep their communications a secret, Kamruj and Saidul had also installed the Blackberry messenger App on their mobile sets.

Kamruj had used this app to stay in touch with HM cadres in Jammu & Kashmir.

"Further investigations revealed that Saidul, along with Kamruj, Sahnawaz and Omar, had also conspired to unleash bomb blasts and armed attacks on innocent civilians in the non-Muslim localities of Lumding and Hojai on Dussehra eve. They had also planned to procure arms and ammunition for these attacks," said the NIA.

The case was originally registered at Jamunamukh, Hojai district under various sections of IPC and UA(P) Act. Later, the probe of the matter was taken over by the NIA on October 5, 2018. (IANS/NS)