‘Bogus proof to frame innocents’

In at least three cases of terror, Maharashtra Police’s Anti Terrorism Squad had “deliberately created bogus evidence, extracted false confessions by the most inhuman torture, planted explosives in the houses of the accused and thus implicated innocent Muslim youth,” a video expose by journalist Ashish Khetan has alleged.

In at least three cases of terror, Maharashtra Police’s Anti Terrorism Squad had “deliberately created bogus evidence, extracted false confessions by the most inhuman torture, planted explosives in the houses of the accused and thus implicated innocent Muslim youth,” a video expose by journalist Ashish Khetan has alleged.

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The journalist has also petitioned for the court’s attention to check this “wanton abuse of power” which “has to be checked and appropriate corrective action taken”.

The video documentary shows many of the victimised youth alleging widespread use of torture including water-boarding and narcotics injections and illegal detentions as some of the means of elucidating false confessions and forcing innocents to turn approvers.

The three cases in question are the July 11, 2006 Mumbai local train blasts, the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the Pune Best Bakery case of February 2010.

“My intent is not to pass a verdict of guilt against certain accused. But it is only to highlight the blatant discrepancies and contradictions in terror investigations,” claimed Khetan, placing on record interrogation reports obtained from his police sources across states and from interviews and transcripts.

Leading civil society activist and lawyer Shanti Bhushan said, “These are clear tell-tale signs of investigations not being conducted in a bonafide manner.”