'NIA sleuths are forcing accused to turn approver'

Ahmedabad: Ruksana, wife of Bharuch double murder accused Nasir Khan Pathan, complained before the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Tuesday that the investigating agency had been putting pressure on her husband to turn approver.
She has urged the court to restrain the investigators from forcibly extracting confession from her husband and making him an approver.She also requested the court to intervene because the investigating official, Namrata Patil, is allegedly pressurizing her to convince her husband to turn approver.
Ruksana has also complained that NIA officials, in connivance with Surat jail authorities, had been putting pressure on her husband. As Pathan is a heart patient, she feared for his life, said Ruksana. She claimed that her husband, along with two other accused, was shifted from a Vadodara jail to Surat earlier this month and the pressure tactics began after this.
Ruksana has accused additional superintendent of police (ASP) Namrata Patil of exerting pressure on the accused and their families to force the prisoners to turn approvers by making confessions under Section 164 of the CrPC. She narrated instances when Patil had summoned her and her family members and threatened them to convince Pathan to confess if he wanted bail, which otherwise would be difficult to get in a terrorism-related case.
The applicant has also claimed that when she was asked to come to Surat jail, she found relatives of another accused, Salim Ghanchi. They, too, were forced to convince Ganchi to turn approver. She even complained that she was forced to remove her burqa so that she could be passed off as an NIA official while entering the jail.
The court has posted for further hearing on the complaint to April 23.
In the Bharuch double murder case, two BJP leaders, Shirish Bangali and Pragnesh Mistry, were shot dead in November last year. Local police began the investigation but it was handed over to the ATS.