Defence advocates punch holes in ’08 Malegaon blast probe by ATS

MUMBAI: While the special public prosecutor Rohini Salian raised questions of NIA's “soft stand’’ against the September 29, 2008 Malegaon blasts accused, defence lawyers point to “questionable actions’’ of Maharashtra Anti Terror Squad (ATS), the agency which had chargesheeted the 12 alleged ‘Hindu extremists’ in the case. Six persons had died and 79 injured in the blasts for which Lt Col Prasad Purohit and Sadhvi Pradya Singh Thakur were arrested as prime accused.
The actions of ATS Mumbai team came under judicial scanner and were subjected to criminal investigations too in the course of the blasts probe. The most glaring case against the ATS began in 2008 when a “suspect’’ picked up by the ATS in Indore disappeared after being labelled a “witness’’ and never arrested. The CBI submitted an investigation report against ATS police inspector Rajan Ghule and another officer holding them prima facie responsible for his ‘’illegal detention to extort a confession from him against others’’, kidnapping and his disappearance. But the state in 2014 granted no prior sanction required to prosecute the ATS officers, who are public servants. The CBI then last May filed a closure report in an MP court to end the case. The Patidar family has filed a protest report to challenge the closure and the proceedings are still pending.
Patidar’s brother had moved the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court in 2008, accusing the ATS of kidnapping and murdering Dilip. The ATS had picked up Patidar, a daily wage electrician, “as a suspect,’ from his rented pad in Indore on the intervening night of November 10-11, 2008 and took him to Mumbai. He used to reside with wife and two-year-old son in the house of key absconding accused Ramji Kalsangra, the alleged bomb planter.
In October 2010, the HC directed Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the disappearance. In 2012, the CBI reported that it was not clear whether he was alive or dead, but sought permission to file a chargesheet against the ATS officers responsible for his disappearance. It said the ATS officers had created “incorrect record knowingly with an intention to save other officers from legal punishment.’’ Seven years later, Patidar is still missing. Salian, last week told TOI that he was “only prosecution witness, not an accused.’
The ATS said it had released Patidar on November 18 to enable him to go home to get identity proof before recording his statement before a magistrate as witness, but the CBI probe said there was proof to show he was in “illegal custody of Ghule till November 20, 2008.’’ Ghule who never called the Patidar family suddenly called them that day to inform them of his release. The CBI closure report a copy of which TOI has, said that call, “was a clear indication of his culpable mind.’’ But the ATS had said that cellular data of Patidar’s phone showed him as being “somewhere in Bhopal on November 20,’’hence proving that he had been released.
Meanwhile various other witnesses and even an accused still in custody later complained to courts and state human rights commission of “illegal detention and torture’’ by ATS members and alleged violation of human rights.
Defence advocate appearing for accused Army officer Lt Col P S Purohit who is in custody for the last seven years said the court had ordered an enquiry into allegations against ATS of illegal detention made by an accused in the case.
An accused Sameer Kulkarni in 2009 moved the Bombay high court alleging ‘’illegal detention’’ till October 28, 2008 after being brought to Mumbai from Bhopal on October 25, by the ATS officers on a private aircraft belonging to India Bulls Aviation Ltd and torture. Justice Abhay Oka of the HC ordered the Mazgaon magistrate to conduct an inquiry into the allegations. The probe report, a copy of which TOI accessed, shows that ATS investigating officer admitted that they had brought the accused in connection with the Malegaon blasts probe, to Mumbai on an India Bulls aircraft from Bhopal. The magistrate’s report said that the accused Kulkarni was taken on the chartered aircraft under an assumed identity with “another name by the police officers’’. The report dismissed allegations of torture by the ATS officers but observed that the police had ‘’detained the accused and curtailed his liberty’’ despite legal requirement of producing him before a magistrate within 24 hours. The report and the case are now pending before the HC..
Another key accused Sudhakar Chaturvedi, who is still in custody, moved the Bombay HC seeking an independent probe into alleged illegal detention. He too alleged that he had been brought to Mumbai, under an alleged false identity as Sangram Singh, from Bhopal in October 2008 by the ATS officers including Rajan Ghule in a private chartered aircraft belonging to India Bulls Aviation Ltd. His 2013 petition is still pending in the Bombay HC without a hearing and no reply filed by ATS for a year and half. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) in its reply said the alleged incident was dated prior to its taking over the blasts probe in 2011 and it could not reply on facts. The next court hearing date is now in September 2015.