POTA court rejects terror accused Maulana Qavi's bail plea

A special Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court rejected the bail plea of Maulana Abdul Qavi today, for allegedly taking part in anti-national activities with alleged terrorist outfits.

Additional Principal Judge Geeta Gopi of the POTA court rejected the bail plea filed by Qavi, after he sought regular bail from the special court pleading that since the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) has filed the chargesheet in the case, there is no reason to keep him behind bars.

Opposing Qavi's bail plea, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) had argued that circumstances of sensitive cases have not been changed and mere filing of a chargesheet cannot be a ground for seeking bail.

After hearing both sides, the POTA court judge rejected Qavi's bail plea and sent him to judicial custody.

Incidentally, POTA was repealed after UPA-I came to power.

Qavi, the founder of Jamia Ashraf-ul-Uloom madrassa in Hyderabad, was arrested from New Delhi airport on March 24 by a DCB team. He has been 'wanted' by the DCB for the last ten years under a case of Prevention of Terrorist Activities (POTA) Act. The DCB had filed a chargesheet against Qavi last month saying that Qavi (58) allegedly took part in a proxy war with the direct or indirect support of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and also other terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to avenge post-Godhra riots.

DCB had also alleged that Qavi had sent several Muslim youths to Pakistan-based training camps run by the LeT and Jaish-E-Mohammad to spread terror in India.