<security personnel and one gardener succumbed to
the bullets of the terrorists and 16 persons
including 13 security men received injuries. The
five terrorists were ultimately killed>
Iwas clear that very evening"This is typical stage-managed RAW stuff>
mm
From: Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: assam@assamnet.org
Subject: [Assam] From Tehelka
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:41:56 -0500
>This is yet another severe indictment of Indian justice!
>cm
>
>
>
>
>
>CURRENT AFFAIRS
>
>Cover Story
>GUILTY OF AN UNSOLVED CRIME ?
>
>The Supreme Court acknowledges that Mohammed
>Afzal Guru is not a terrorist and that they have
>no direct evidence against him. Is he on death
>row on the basis of a shoddy probe? Mihir
>Srivastava looks at critical questions still
>unanswered
>
>The thoroughness of the probe can be judged by
>the court's remarks. It pulled up the police for
>faking arrest memos and doctoring telephone
>conversations
>December 13, 2001. "Five heavily armed persons
>stormed the Parliament House complex and
>inflicted heavy casualties on the security men on
>duty. This unprecedented event bewildered the
>entire nation and sent shockwaves across the
>globe. In the gun battle that lasted thirty
>minutes, these five terrorists who tried to gain
>entry into the Parliament when it was in session,
>were killed. Nine persons including eight
>security personnel and one gardener succumbed to
>the bullets of the terrorists and 16 persons
>including 13 security men received injuries. The
>five terrorists were ultimately killed" - From
>the Supreme Court judgement.
>
>
>Six years and three judgements later, we still do
>not 'reliably' know who attacked Parliament on
>December 13, 2001. What we do know is that
>Mohammed Afzal Guru, the alleged conspirator, was
>awarded the death penalty but is he being made a
>scapegoat? Is Afzal being held guilty for a crime
>that is still unsolved?
>
> Consider this: the 'comprehensive investigation'
>of the attack on Parliament was completed in 17
>days flat by the investigators - the Special Cell
>of the Delhi Police. The prosecution story of who
>attacked Parliament, which is popularly believed
>to be the real story, is based on the confession
>of the main accused Afzal Guru to the police
>under the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act
>(POTA). The Supreme Court has dubbed this
>confession, and thus, in effect, the conspiracy
>theory behind the attack floated by the police,
>as "unreliable".
>
> There are 12 accused in the Parliament attack
>case. Five of them - Mohammad, Tariq, Hamza, Rana
>and Raja - were killed when they tried to lay
>siege on Parliament. The other three - Gazi Baba,
>Masood Azhar and Tariq, allegedly the masterminds
>behind the attack and Lashkar-e-Toiba (let) and
>Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) operatives - were never
>arrested. Gazi Baba was shot in an encounter with
>security forces in 2004. His body was recognised
>by Afzal's brother. Only four accused were
>arrested: Afzal Guru, his cousin Shaukat Hussain
>Guru, Shaukat's wife Afsan Guru and SAR Geelani,
>a teacher of Arabic in Delhi University. Geelani
>and Afsan were acquitted. Not one of them was
>convicted under POTA charges. Afzal does not
>belong to any banned terrorist organisation.
>Shaukat was sentenced to 10 years rigorous
>imprisonment because he knew about the
>conspiracy. Afzal was given the death sentence on
>the charges of murder and for waging war against
>the State.
>
>Quick probe but no direct evidence against Afzal
>
> The thoroughness with which the investigations
>of such an important case were carried out can be
>judged by the remarks made by the Delhi High
>Court. The court has pulled up the investigators
>for the production of false arrest memos,
>doctoring of telephone conversations and the
>illegal confining of people to force them to sign
>blank papers. Despite these observations, "the
>courts did not pass any strictures against the
>officers for their shoddy and illegal
>investigations," says Nandita Haksar, Geelani's
>lawyer.
>
>There is no direct evidence against Afzal. None
>of the 80 prosecution witnesses ever even alleged
>that Afzal was in any way associated with or
>belonged to any terrorist organisation. He has
>been awarded the death sentence entirely on the
>basis of circumstantial evidence. Afzal did not
>shy away from admitting the possibly
>incriminating fact that he brought Mohammad from
>Kashmir and that he accompanied him when the
>latter purchased a second-hand Ambassador, two
>days before the attack. The Supreme Court in its
>judgement observes that even when his lawyer
>attempted to deny this fact during the trial,
>Afzal insisted that he indeed had accompanied
>Mohammad.
>
> They didn't need to die: Parliament staff pay
>homage to security personnel who died in the
>attack
>
>The former Thane Police chief claimed that they
>had arrested Hamza and handed him over to J&K
>cops in December 2000
>
>Why was the STF's involvement not probed?
>
> In the same vein, Afzal maintains that he did
>this at the behest of the Special Task Force
>(STF) of the Jammu and Kashmir police. Afzal
>alleged in a letter to his lawyer Sushil Kumar in
>the Supreme Court that Davinder Singh, Deputy sp
>of Humhama, in Jammu and Kashmir, asked him to
>take Mohammad to Delhi and arrange for his stay
>there. "Since I was not knowing the man, but I
>suspected this man is not Kashmiri, as he did not
>speak Kashmiri," wrote Afzal. "The facts of the
>letter were never put on record before the
>courts," charges Haksar.
>
> It is clear from the case records that Afzal is
>a surrendered militant, who gave himself up to
>the bsf in 1993. Further, Afzal told the court
>that he was frequently asked by the STF to work
>for them (a senior police official has confirmed
>this to Tehelka). He said the STF extorted large
>sums of money from him for not arresting him. But
>he was detained in as late as 2000 and was
>offered the job of a special police officer. He
>met Tariq (a co-accused, who is absconding) in
>the STF camp, where the latter was working. It
>was Tariq who introduced Mohammad to him in the
>STF camp. The alleged role of the STF in the
>Parliament attack, as per the court record, has
>not been investigated at all. Davinder Singh
>confirmed that no investigator ever got back to
>him and sought clarification on his alleged role
>in sending Mohammad to Delhi with Afzal's help.
>"Why will they ask me this? He (Afzal) is saying
>this to save his own skin," said Singh.
>
> In his reply, Singh denies the allegations. "Do
>you want to say that we are behind the Parliament
>attack," he asked. Singh acknowledged that he had
>once detained Afzal for interrogation. "We had
>reliable information that he knew the whereabouts
>of Gazi Baba, one of the most dreaded terrorists
>in Kashmir (and an accused in the case). But we
>couldn't get anything out of him and let him go."
>
>The Delhi Police Special Cell had only Afzal to
>identify the bodies of the five assassins gunned
>down in Parliament. There is no other
>corroborative evidence that sheds light on the
>identities of these five terrorists. Later in
>court, Afzal denied identifying them. "I had not
>identified any terrorists. Police told me the
>names of the terrorists and forced me to identify
>them," Afzal told the court in Afzal told the
>court in his statement made under Section 313 of
>the Criminal Procedure Code.
>
>In the absence of any direct evidence against
>Afzal, the Supreme Court said in its judgement:
>"The incident which resulted in heavy casualty,
>has shaken the entire nation and the collective
>conscience of the society will only be satisfied
>if capital punishment will be awarded to the
>offender." Haksar does not agree with the court's
>view. "The Supreme Court has not passed any
>strictures against the corrupt officers for their
>shoddy and illegal investigations and has held
>that there is no direct evidence against Afzal.
>However they have confirmed the death sentence
>because they believe that this death is necessary
>to assuage Indian citizens."
>
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