NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry has appointed Urfi Masood Syed as a special public prosecutor for conducting the trial in nine NIA cases before a special court in Punjab's Mohali, including a narco-terror case from Jammu and Kashmir and the 2019 bomb blast case in Tarn Taran, according to a government notification issued on Thursday.
Besides the two cases, a seizure of hand grenades from alleged operatives of the Babbar Khalsa International in Amritsar, arson and violence by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) activists in Punjab in 2017-18, narco-terror cases related to infamous drug peddler Ranjit Singh alias Cheeta, the killing of Shaurya Chakra-awardee Balwinder Singh Sandhu by agents of the banned Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) in 2020 will now be handled by Syed, the notification issued by the home ministry said.
The government has also notified the children's court at Bhopal, that is, the Principal District and Sessions Court, as the Special NIA Court for the trial related to the Bhopal-Ujjain train blast in 2017.
The government has notified the special court in consultation with the chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, an order issued on Thursday said.
"The jurisdiction of the Special Court ... shall extend throughout the State of Madhya Pradesh," the notification published in the gazette said.
The court of the District and Additional Sessions Judge-XV in Patna has been designated as a special court for cases being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), another notification said.
The decision has been taken in consultation with the chief justice of the Patna High Court.
The jurisdiction of the NIA court will be throughout Bihar.