Malegaon: A Mumbai based NGO has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in Bombay High Court demanding action against former Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief and now Commissioner of Police (Thane) KP Raghuvanshi, Additional Commissioner of Police, Economic Offices Wing (Mumbai) and Superintendent of Police Malegaon in 2006 Rajvardhan, Chairman of Nanded Sikh Gurudwara Committee and Director General of Police Maharashtra in 2006 PS Pasricha, and other high ranking officers, it was disclosed by Advocate Ejaz Naqvi in a press conference in Mumbai Monday.
The disclosure came on the eve of the 7th anniversary of the September 08, 2006 bombing outside Hamidiya Mosque which had killed 32 people and left over 300 injured - a majority being children. The day had coincided with Shab-e-Barat – a Muslim festival when thousands throng the mosques for special prayers.
The petition, which has also demanded compensation for the Muslim youths who were arrested and languished in jail for more than five years, will come up for hearing before Justice PV Hardas and Justice GS Patel of the Bombay High Court on June 26.
The petition filed by Sayyed Ameen Mustafa - District President of Muslim-e-Hind, a copy of which is available with the ummid.com, has cited Abrar Ahmed's affidavit filed before the court as evidence.
Abrar in his affidavit recalls a September 2006 trip with his wife, allegedly under Rajvardhan's instructions, to Nashik, Jhavra, Indore and some temples in Ujjain, during which he claims policemen photographed and videographed their meetings with a sadhu, a sadhvi and others.
Abrar in his affidavit also says Rajvardhan had given him a mobile and told him in October to get people he trusted to call him on that number and read out some written statements, which Abrar was to record.
The affidavit also describes an October 2006 trip to Dhule, Indore, Nashik and Deolali, again with his wife.
Rajvardhan allegedly met them in Nashik on October 25 and informed them that Abrar's brother had filed a case accusing the officer of kidnapping the couple, and asked them to deny this in court.
Abrar, later taken into custody in Mumbai, alleges Rajvardhan then promised him money, bribed his brother-in-law and father-in-law in 2007, and tried in 2009 to get him to sign on some papers.
The petition says that Abrar Ahmed has also alleged in interviews to the media that when he was taken from the Anti Terrorist Squad Kalachowkie unit to its Nagpada headquarters, he was offered Rs 5 lakh for helping the police.
In his affidavit, Abrar has alleged that Raghuvanshi met him several times in jail and threatened him in an attempt to get him to sign some papers.
Abrar was an approver in the case but had later turned hostile.
The petition also says that then ATS Chief KP Raghuvanshi has been named by several of the nine arrested as having been aware that his junior officers were torturing them.
Raghuvanshi, given charge of the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad when it was formed on July 8, 2004, headed the probes into the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul, serial train blasts and the September 8 Malegaon blasts that year.
The petition has also named Sanjeev Dayal - then Additional Director General (Law & Order) Maharashtra and now Deputy General of Police (MaharashtraI, Raman Tyagi - then Deputy Superintendent of Police, Central Bureau of Investigation Special Task Force and now retired, Naval Bajaj - then Deputy Commissioner of Police, Anti Terrorist Squad and now Additional Commissioner of Police, Special Branch (Maharashtra) besides the other officers.
The petitioner said, "The above officers' role and investigations were found to be full of pandora box and lies, and filled with communal flavor against a section of the society."
Terming the officers named in the petition as "anti-minority", the petitioner demanded their suspension and demanded initiating F.I.R. against them under section 177, 181, 330 of the IPC, for taking forcible confessional statement of the nine accused, and giving false statement before the court.
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