The Supreme Court on November 3, 2022, affirmed the death penalty awarded to Islamic terrorist Mohammed Arif of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for the 2000 Red Fort Attack case. The review petition filed by Arif challenging his death sentence was rejected by the apex court.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit while pronouncing the judgment said:

We have accepted the prayers that electronic records must be eschewed from consideration. However, having regard to the entirety of the matter, his guilt is proved. We affirm the view taken by this court and reject the review petition.

The court further said:

It was an attack on Mother India. This is apart from the fact that as many as three persons had lost their lives. The conspirators had no place in India. Appellant was a foreign national and had entered India without any authorization or even justification. This is apart from the fact that the appellant built up a conspiracy by practicing deceit and committing various other offences in furtherance of the conspiracy to wage war against India as also to commit murders by launching an unprovoked attack on the soldiers of Indian Army. We, therefore, have no doubts that death sentence was the only sentence in the peculiar circumstance of this case.

On December 22, 2000, three persons including two army jawans belonging to the 7th Rajputana Rifles were killed when Islamic terrorist Mohammad Arif started firing at Red Fort in Delhi. Arif was arrested on December 25, 2000. The trial court awarded the death sentence to Arif on October 24, 2005, which was confirmed by Delhi High Court’s order dated September 13, 2007. Arif’s review petition was dismissed by the apex court in August 2011.

Later in 2014, the Supreme Court stayed Arif’s execution and in 2016, decided to re-hear his review petition.