By TCN Staff Reporter,
The witnesses retracted their statement saying that, ATS pressurised them for a testimony against the accused
Jaipur: Fourteen alleged SIMI members arrested from Kota, Baran and Jodhpur and charged for the Jaipur serial blasts of May 2008 were let free, as the fast track sessions court here on Friday couldn’t find any relevant evidences or testimonies to connect them with the alleged crime.
The fast track additional Sessions Judge, Jaipur City, Nepal Singh, through his judgement acquitted those innocent victims free of all charges, in the wake of the fact that the prosecution was a failure in establishing their link with SIMI. The court observed that they were not involved in any kind of radical or terrorist activities or were not found to be promoting hatred and enmity between different communities, as the prosecution turned out to be a big failure in proving such allegations made by them.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad [ATS] of Rajasthan police had earlier made vague accusations that they were members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India [SIMI]. In an attempt to correlate them with the Jaipur blasts, SIT even accused them of supporting and building terror networks in the state, being inspired by the so called “terror camps” organised in the Kota region.
The court through its order has now granted a clean chit from the whole charges made against them, under various Sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and Sections 153-A (promoting enmity on ground of religion), 295-A (act intended to outrage religious feelings of any class) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code.
These innocent victims of the biased policing were facing the miseries of trial and imprisonment since last three years. Those acquitted includes an elderly physician, Ishaq Qureshi, his son Taufeeq who is a Unani medicine student, Nazakat Hussain, Amanullah, Mohammed Yunus, Nadim Akhtar, Munawwar Hussain – who were all from Kota, Mohammed Ilyas from Baran and Mohammed Sohail and Azam from Jodhpur. Inamur Rehman was later added to the list of the accused.
The 48 witnesses produced by the ATS in front of the Justice, retracted their statements given earlier to the ATS saying that they were pressurised by these police officers to make testimonies against the accused, in favour of the prosecution. The court so declared the statements by these witnesses who were mostly kiosk owners, labourers and daily wage earners as hostile.
Three of the 14 acquitted –Mahdi Hassan, Imran and Atiqur Rehman – were also charged for the Ahmedabad serial blasts, and so they are lodged in Sabarmati Central Jail.
Three of them were already set free on bail during the course of trial. With the acquittal orders on, the formalities were underway in the Central Jail here late on Friday evening for the release of these innocent victims, who lost a valuable share of their life behind bars.
Jamil Ahmed, counsel for the accused from Kota and Baran, told that the judgment has now established that the ATS were cooking up a false case against his clients who actually had no role in the incidents. “The ATS had no evidence against these persons. Its claim that the elderly accused were SIMI members and they attended training camps is ludicrous”, he said.
The prosecution turned out to be a big failure in providing credible evidences in favour of their charge that one Sajid Mansoori alias Salim Sheikh from Gujarat had visited the Kota region and that he attended meetings with them. Mr. Ahmed said while Sajid Mansoori had not been made an accused, innocent people picked up in the crackdown had to spend their three years in jail being denied with justice.
According to Paikar Farooq, counsel for the accused from Jodhpur, the state police was under immense pressure with news reports in 2008 regarding their counterpart, Gujarat Police officer’s success over the probes in to Ahmedabad blasts. The ATS thus got tempted and worked on a “concocted theory” that Sajid Mansoori and Abu Bashar Qasmi will most probably be having contacts in Rajasthan, he added.