ABHINAV BHARAT TERROR ORGANIZATION - THREAT TO SUBVERT INVESTIGATION

ABHINAV BHARAT TERROR ORGANIZATION - THREAT TO SUBVERT INVESTIGATION


DHARNA - CHURCHGATE STN. (EAST) FOOTPATH, MONDAY 3RD JULY, 5-6pm


There is a clear attempt to both subvert and finally scuttle the investiagtions into the Abhinav Bharat terror network. It is also a clear manifestation of the double standards and the hypocrisy of both the national & state governments, the judiciary as well as the security apparatus led by the Anti-Terror Sqad (ATS).


After the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, we were truly worried about the course of the investigation against the Abhinav Bharat, that was being led by the late Shri Hemant Karkare, the ATS chief. His chargesheet was immaculately drafted and the case against the Abhinav Bharat was impregnable. We had also stated that his successor, Mr. Raghuvanshi, could not be trusted with the investigation and we have been vindicated. Raghuvanshi has not proceeded with the investiagtion and it is now clearly being subverted by a number of political pressures. We demand that Raghuvanshi be asked to resign and an honest & upright officer be appointed as the new ATS chief.


It should also be made clear that we are against the use of MCOCA in principle, as it is a draconian anti-democratic law that is in clear violation of all contitutional and democratic principles. Also its selective and communal implementaion is abominable to the secular and democratic nature of our society.


Our main objective is to make sure that the investiagtion as well as the legal process, into the Abhinav Bharat terror organization carries on unimpeded and the links & its deep roots in the various bodies of the Rashtriaya Swayamsevak Sangh, elements of the Military and the intelligence services, as well as the fact that they have deep ties with the Israeli MOSSAD, be exposed.


We have received support from all major political parties & secular organizations. We appeal to all concerned patriotic citizens to join the protest and raise our collective voice against the politics of terror that has been unleashed by the powers that be.


Jai Hind !!


In Solidarity


Feroze Mithiborwala, Col. Sudhir Sawant, Kishore Jagtap, Aslam Ghazi, Meraj Siddiqui, Subodh More, Ismail Batliwala, Varsha V V, Mukta Srivastava, Simpreet Singh, Shakil Ahmad, Jagdish Nagarkar, Mulniwasi Mala, Sayeed Khan, Munawwar Khan, Azimuddin, Jyoti Badekar, Avinash Kadam, Munawwar Azad, Ghazala Azad, Qazi.
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Court drops anti-terror provisions against all Malegaon accused



Mumbai In a jolt to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), the special court hearing the 2008 Malegaon blast case today dropped provisions of the stringent anti-terror Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) slapped on Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit and nine others accused.
The reasoning behind the ruling by Special Judge Y D Shinde is expected to be available on Saturday.

The judge stayed his order for four weeks to allow the prosecution to appeal in the High Court. If the ruling is upheld by the Bombay High Court, the high-profile case will be tried in a regular court in Nashik and not the special MCOCA court in Mumbai.

While the ATS and the prosecution said they would appeal, lawyers defending the Hindu activists hailed the ruling and said it showed that MCOCA had been applied in the case only to use confessions of the accused during the trial as the state had hardly any evidence to back its case.

Purohit’s lawyer Shrikant Shivde had challenged the application of MCOCA in the case saying the ATS investigation had not established that the accused were operating as part of a syndicate as required by MCOCA. They were also not alleged to have gained financially.

MCOCA can be applied in a case only if at least one of the accused has two prior cases that have been chargesheeted within the past decade. Further, each offence must be punishable with a minimum sentence of three years or more.

The tough law allows the prosecution to use as evidence confession recorded by a senior police officer which is ratified in court within 24 hours while under the Indian Penal Code a confession can only be recorded before a metropolitan magistrate. Besides, MCOCA also allows the prosecution to use telephone intercepts as evidence.

The ATS had applied MCOCA in the September 29 bomb blast case — in which six Muslims were killed — after one of the accused, Rakesh Dhavde, an antique arms trader from Pune, was found to be linked to three other criminal cases as well. While Dhavde had been chargesheeted in one of the three cases, which related to a blast in Purna, before he was picked up for the Malegaon blasts, he was charged for the two other older cases after he was picked up for Malegaon. This allowed the ATS to impose MCOCA on him and — by extension — on the others accused in the case.

However, Shivde argued against this saying the cases against Dhavde did not meet the criteria for MCOCA as he was chargesheeted in the second and third case only after being picked up for the Malegaon blast. His case got a boost last week when Dhavde was discharged in the Purna case for want of evidence.

“On the basis of one accused Rakesh Dhavde and chargesheets against him, the ATS can’t pull in others. They have nowhere been able to produce independent evidence against the accused besides the confessions extracted,” said Shivde. “We have maintained from the beginning that MCOCA was invoked just to extract confessions. The police resort to such moves when they have no evidence against the accused.”

Special Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian said Friday’s order had not deterred the state. “We have enough evidence to challenge the order. With 11 accused tried in the case, we have provided all the evidence in the chargesheet to establish how this was a large nexus and a syndicate was operating under the disguise of an organisation ‘Abhinav Bharat’. Enough telephonic conversations and forensic reports are furnished to support our stand,” she said.

The case had assumed strong political overtones due to the involvement of Hindu extremist groups and Friday’s ruling once again drew political attention. The BJP’s Mumbai unit president Gopal Shetty said that “the quashing of MCOCA proves that it was a clear conspiracy hatched against innocents to appease the minority community. Congress slapped MCOCA on them just to gain political mileage. And Congress made use of the ATS in the case”.