The court held Mohamed Saleem guilty of charges of criminal conspiracy.

The NIA court on Tuesday convicted Mohamed Saleem in an espionage case. The court held the accused guilty of charges of criminal conspiracy, possession of high quality counterfeit Indian currency notes, besides preparation to commit terrorist acts.

He has been awarded 5 years of imprisonment.

Investigation revealed that Mohamed Saleem and others along with the then officials of the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka hatched the conspiracy to attack US Consulate, public congregation in Chennai in 2014.

The accused had also planned terror attacks on sensitive defence and Indian Naval Installations of South India. The accused had also procured high quality counterfeit Indian currency notes for meeting the expences towards such terrorist activities.

On April 2014, Sri Lankan national and prime accused Mohamed Sakir Hussain was arrested by Tamil Nadu police from Chennai.

Sakir was instructed by his handlers in the Pakistan High Commission, Colombo to carry out terrorist attacks in the city.

Based on his input, accused Mohamed Saleem and Sivabalan were arrested and high quality counterfeit Indian currency notes worth Rs2,50,000 were seized.

In June, 2014 NIA took over the investigation and filed a chargesheet against three accused- Sakir Hussain, Sivabalanand, Mohamed Saleem in October 2014 u/s 120B r/w 489C and 34 r/w 489C of the IPC besides sections 16 and 18 of UA(P) Act.

During the framing of charges, Sakir Hussain had pleaded guilty of all the charges against him and convicted.

Now, accused Mohamed Saleem has been also convicted and awarded punishment of 5 years of Simple Imprisonment with fine of Rs2,000 by the special court on Monday.

The Pakistani officer Amir Zubair Siddiqui is absconding and efforts are on to get him from Pakistan.