Defence points out loopholes in ‘Pak spy’ Kashif Ali case

The court had charged Kashif Ali, who was 24 years old when he was arrested under sections 3 (spying), 5 (wrongful communication), 6 (unauthorised use of uniforms, falsification of reports, forgery, personation and false documents) of the Official Secrets Act and Section 14 of the Foreigner’s Act. Also, charges under sections 419 (cheating by personation) , 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, have been framed against all five accused, including Kashif.

Talking to Newsline, defense counsel Gautam Bhardwaj for Kashif Ali and Jagdish Kumar, said, “There are many loose ends in the police investigation and there is not a valid justification for any one of these.”

Listing out a few, Bhardwaj said that the owner of the car who had given the blue Maruti 800 was never arrested by the police. “The owner Hakum Singh was never arrested. He was made a witness and in his statements recorded in the court, he said that he had given his car to accused Kashif Ali as he knew his employer well,” said Bhardwaj.

DSP Satbir Singh, who had supervised the case, said, “We got some important information from the car owner. This helped us in the case and so he was made a witness and not framed as an accused”.

Also, Charanjeet Singh Gujral, the owner of the house in Sector 44, told the court that along with Kashif, a person named Santosh Singh had also approached him for the accommodation. Gujral told the court that Kashif introduced himself as Pawan Kumar. “Santosh’s documents were seized by the police and he was never arrested. Police never questioned him. Santosh got his documents released from the court. He is not even a witness in the case,” said Bhardwaj. The DSP added, “Santosh was not present at the time of arrest. Also, as his documents were in the room when the arrest was made, we had seized them. As per the intelligence input, only Kashif Ali was the spy.”

Bhardwaj said that in his statements, the investigating officer of the case, Inspector Amanjot Singh did not reveal the source and contents of the military documents seized from Kashif. The DSP said, “We will still not reveal the contents as they are a matter of national security.”

A resident of Zulfiqar Colony in Faislabad, Pakistan, Kashif was allegedly monitoring Indian defence installations. He was living as Pawan Kumar, a dealing agent. When the police intensified his interrogation, he  disclosed his real identity.A day after his arrest, Kulwinder Singh, a resident of Sector 66, Mohali, Gurpinder Singh, a resident of Sector 47 and Jagdish Kumar, a resident of Phase IV, Mohali, were arrested for providing Kashif with fake PAN card, voter ID card and passport.