In Mecca Masjid Case, Another Lapse: Witnesses Were Close To Aseemanand

NEW DELHI: The acquittal of saffron-clad monk Aseemanand and four others charged with the terror attack at Hyderabad's iconic Mecca Masjid has raised many questions about the inability of the probe agency to prove their involvement in the blast that killed nine people.

NDTV had yesterday reported how the National Investigation Agency had opted for a lawyer with little experience in murder trials to prosecute the men it alleged had conspired to bomb the mosque. One more factor that could have contributed to the court's verdict this week could have something to do with the choice of witnesses who became hostile.

One estimate says that out of the 226 witnesses, at least 64 turned hostile. When NDTV looked through the list of witnesses, it found that at least six of them were main accused in the Malegaon blast case and enlisted by investigators as witnesses while they were still in jail.

For instance, witness number 106, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit.

Col Purohit was made a witness, the charge-sheet says, so that he could establish that the saffron-clad monk Aseemanand called him in December 2007 to say that Sunil Joshi, who was alleged to be responsible for the bomb blast in Ajmer, had been murdered and was 'apna banda' (our own).

But Shrikant Purohit was at that time in Nashik Jail, an accused for the 2008 Malegaon blast.

In February this year, he told the court that he did know Aseemanand but the two never spoke about the death of co-accused Sunil Joshi. He also denied giving any statement to the probe agencies on the Mecca Masjid blast.

The same for witness 107 Sameer Sharad Kulkarni, who was also in Nashik Jail at the time.

He was supposed to prove that he was also there at the time of this phone call and then was asked to find out how Sunil Joshi died.

Similiarly Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Shiv Narayan Kalsangra and Shyam Sahu are all other witnesses who were expected by the prosecution to have given crucial evidence against Mecca Masjid blast accused Aseemanand.

Aseemanand was one of the five men cleared of the terror charge this Monday when the judge in Hyderabad delivered his verdict. The detailed judgment analysing the evidence presented by the prosecution has, however, not been made public yet.

Nine people were killed in the blast at Hyderabad's iconic mosque in 2007 which was initially probed by the local police. The probe was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, in 2010 which arrested Aseemanand, linking the case to right-wing Hindu activists.

The National Investigation Agency took over the case in 2011 after the centre decided to get a single agency to probe all cases against the Hindu right-wing groups.

Rohini Salian, a former NIA prosecutor, questions the agency's wisdom in relying on witnesses who were bound to become hostile.

"How can associates of the same organiation testify against each other?" Rohini Salian asked.

"NIA should have got independent witnesses," she said.

N Harinath, the NIA prosecutor suggested that this decision wasn't his and had been decided much earlier.

"It was the CBI's choice of witness. I have no role in preparing charge-sheet," Mr Harinath told NDTV.

But this isn't the only aspect of the NIA's case that has been called into question.

NDTV had yesterday highlighted how Mr Harinath did not have the credentials to prosecute the accused in a terror case.  Mr Harinath told NDTV that he had been a lawyer for the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI's bank fraud cases apart from handling attempted murder and suicide cases.

He also confirmed that he had been associated with the ABVP, the students' wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh during his university days. Mr Harinath had, however, insisted that he had done his job as the special prosecutor for the NIA by placing all the evidence before the court.