Thank you NIA: Now terror suspects are innocents; Karkare is a cruel terrorist!

Mumbai, May 14: While giving clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and 5 others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has levelled shocking allegations against Late Hemant Karkare led Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad, which had exposed the saffron terrorism. The NIA has accused Karkare and team of using torture to extract confessional statement from the terror accused and the invoking of MCOCA provisions against them.

In 2006, when residents of Malegaon were observing Shab-e-Baraat, two powerful blasts ripped through the Maharashtra town, killing 37 persons and injuring hundreds. Most of them were Muslims. From 2007 to 2008 similar attacks took place on the Samjhauta Express (February 2007), Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid (May 2007), the Ajmer Dargah (October 2007) and once again in Malegaon (September 2008).

The case was cracked open by Karkare while probing the second blasts in Malegaon. Piecing together some disjointed leads, Karkare tracked down the owner of the motorcycle used in the blasts. It belonged to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

Karkare's investigations led the police to a Hindutva plot, an alleged plan to respond to a bomb with a bomb. Soon, Thakur and Lt Colonel SK Purohit, a serving army officer, were identified as the main suspects, arrested and chargesheeted. A 4500-page chargesheet by the ATS gave details of the plot and identified Abhinav Bharat Sangh, a Hindutva outfit, as perpetrators of these attacks.

In the supplementary chargesheet filed on Friday in a special court in the case of the 2008 blast in which seven people were killed, the NIA listed many "shortcomings" in the ATS' investigations and claims how courts did not believe the confession statements of the accused.

The new chargesheet says the investigation conducted by Karkare was flawed, that the evidence produced against Colonel Prasad Purohit, another key accused, had been fabricated, and statements of witnesses were taken under duress.

During the original probe, the ATS had found explosives at Purohit's residence in Deolali. NIA officials now claim the incriminating evidence was planted at Purohit's home by the ATS.

The NIA said that accused Sudhakar Dwivedi when produced before the magistrate for confirmation of the confessional statement made by him, stated that his confession was the outcome of torture meted out to him.

The agency also said that "dubious" methods adopted during investigation by ATS become crystal clear from the disappearance of one of the main witness.

"The CBI during its investigation in the disappearance of the witness has submitted findings against the officers of the ATS Mumbai," the agency said.

"ATS Mumbai invoked MCOCA on the basis of the involvement of accused Rakesh Dhawade in the previous two blast cases i.e. Parbhani and Jalna in which the concerned courts had taken the cognisance. The way and circumstances in which the ATS invoked the provisions of MCOCA in this case becomes questionable", the NIA chargesheet said.

According to the NIA chargesheet a case was registered in November 2003 in Parbhani bomb blasts. The chargesheet was filed against two accused persons Sanjay Choudhary and Himanshu Panse. While in September 2006 first supplementary chargesheet was filed against accused Maruthi Keshav Wagh and Yogesh Deshpande.

"The second supplementary chargesheet was filed against accused Dhawade on Novmber 13, 2008 after his arrest on November 11, 2008 i.e within two days of his arrest (in Parbhani case)," the NIA said.

"This raises considerable doubt on the integrity of invoking of MCOCA by ATS," the chargesheet said.

The federal anti-terror agency also said that a case was registered in August 2004 in Jalna bomb blasts case against unknown persons and the chargesheet was filed against accused Maruti Keshav Wagh on September 30, 2006. Then the first supplementary chargesheet was filed against Yogesh Deshpande, Gururaj Jairam, Rahul Manohar Pandey and Sanjay Choudhary in the case on January 7, 2008.

"Second supplementary chargesheet was filed against accused Dhawde on November 15, 2008 on the day he was arrested in that (Jalna) case. It may be mentioned that in this case, no accused was shown as wanted in the earlier chargesheets," the NIA document said.

The agency also said that Dhawde was arrested in the 2008 Malegoan blast case on November 2, 2008 and four days later Sukhwinder Singh, the then additional commissioner of ATS, sent a letter to Police inspector of Aurangabad ATS and instructed him that arrested accused Dhawde has disclosed that he had organized a training camp in July/August 2003 at Singhgad (Pune) in which the arrested accused in Parbhani blasts had participated.

"Further (Sukhvinder Singh) directed to formally arrest Dhawde and to investigate the crime," said the NIA chargesheet.

According to NIA, the investigation officer of Malegoan 2008 case, Mohan Kulkarni sent a letter to the police inspector local crime branch (LCB) Jalna and informed that Dhawde has disclosed that eight persons had come for taking training of preparation of explosives and carrying out test blasts for terror activities.

Kulkarni, NIA said, also informed that Dhawde had received eight recruits from Pune railway station and taken them to Singhgad and looked after their logistic arrangements.

"Kulkarni directed the inspector of LCB to arrest accused Dhawde in the Jalna blast case", the NIA chargesheet said.

The agency said that on considering the dates of arrest and filing of chargesheet (against Dhawde) it is apparent that there was hardly any time available to ATS Mumbai to collect the evidence against the accused before filing of chargesheet.

It is worth mentioning here that in 2015, Rohini Salian, who was a special prosecutor in the Malegaon case, had alleged that she was under pressure from the NIA against the accused. She had later filed an affidavit naming the NIA officer who had approached her. Salian was later denotified from the panel of lawyers.