Probes yield little result in terror-hit India

EASY TARGET: Following Hyderabad blasts, Junaid was arrested and tortured for five months and then released.

    

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Rajdeep Sardesai

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Keywords: Jaipur Blasts, Terror

The medical student says he was picked up at a railway station by plain-clothes policemen, blindfolded, taken to a remote location and even tortured.

"They tortured me for two-three hours. They beat me on the sole and even gave me electric shocks in my private parts," Junaid claims.

Junaid was in custody for five months, until he was suddenly released without a single charge or case against him. Though the experience was traumatic, Junaid insists it has not turned him into a radical.

"I will take legal help and fight the case. I will abide by whatever the court decides. Fight for ones right is different from terrorism," he says.

After the Malegaon blast in September 2006, Maharashtra's Anti-Terror Squad arrested nine men on charges of terror. All were allegedly members of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

The men were also accused of having Pakistani links and even being involved in the Mumbai serial train blasts of July 2006.

But local leaders did not believe that the nine men were guilty. They launched a parallel investigation into the case, which came up with some startling facts.

"One of the accused, Shabeer Ahmed Masullah was already arrested in an unlawful activities related case, since June in that case," Shahid Azmi, Defence Lawyer, points out.

Under pressure, the government handed the case to the CBI. But in March 2008, the prosecution got another jolt when the Supreme Court, accepting a petition that state governments could not enact insurgency laws, stayed the trial.

In Varanasi the police insist they have cracked the case.

A month after the blasts, police arrested the alleged mastermind - Waliullah, a cleric, and allegedly a member of the Bangladesh-based HuJI.

Chargesheets were filed against Waliullah and two other men in three cases. The police are confident they've got their man.

"We have details of the organisation that has caused these incidents, but again because of reasons of security these things are shared only to a limited extent," Pravin Kumar Singh, IG, Varanasi says.

So why has Waliullah not been convicted yet? Why has Shamim not been arrested?

Sources in the police say that the government itself loses interest in a case after the suspect is arrested. Fair trials are not a priority.