By TwoCircles.net Staff Writer,
Pune: Hours after German Bakery blast ‘prime suspect’ Abdul Samad Bhatkal granted bail by a Mumbai Sessions Court yesterday, the Maharashtra Director General of Police D Sivanandan has admitted that investigations by the state ATS into the February 13, 2010 Pune bakery blast have gone wrong.
The Mumbai court granted bail to Samad, who was arrested on May 24, 2010 at Mangalore airport in connection with a 2009 arms seizure case and alleged to be involved in the Pune blast case. The court said there was no evidence against him.
Reacting over the bail to Samad, Maharashtra DGP Sivanandan admitted to lapses in the bakery blast probe. “The ATS has to study the Pune blast case scientifically and collect evidence to identify the group behind the attack”, Sivanandan was quoted as saying in the media. The word “scientifically”, which the DGP used in his statement, points to the biased probe that the Pune and Maharashtra ATS have been doing in the case.
“The first mistake was the blast and second wrong investigation. What we need is right investigation at right time,” the DGP said.
Soon after Samad was picked from Bajpe Airpor in Mangalore when he returned from Dubai, the Maharashtra ATS had claimed to have made a breakthrough in the Pune blast case. He was declared prime suspected in the case and Home Minister P Chidambaram, in no time patted the police and ATS for the ‘great’ job.
But the police took his remand in an arms case of August 2009 related to South Mumbai.
While granting bail, the Mumbai court observed that there was no evidence against Samad and that ATS had never dubbed him ‘wanted accused’ in the 2009 arms seizure case.
Samad’s family had denied his role in the Pune blast. They had claimed with some proof that Samad was in Mangalore attending marriage of his relative when the blast took place.