New Delhi: Casting doubt on the genuineness of recovery of arms and ammunition from two men accused of conspiring, advocating and facilitating terrorist activities, a Delhi court on Thursday acquitted them after an eight-year ordeal in jail.
In a 79-page ruling, Additional Sessions Judge Amit Bansal of the Patiala House court said, “A doubt is raised about the genuineness of the arms and ammunition allegedly recovered from the accused persons.” The First Information Report (FIR) number on top of the documents shared with the court such as seizure memos also revealed that either the FIR was recorded prior to the ‘recovery’ of weapons or its number was added after its registration,” the court noted.
“This seriously reflected upon the veracity of the prosecution’s version and created a great deal of doubt about the recovery of arms and ammunition,” the court said. “No explanation has been given from the side of the prosecution as to how the FIR number has been mentioned on the said documents,” it added in the order.
The case dates back to September 2018 when the Delhi Police Special Cell in Lodhi Colony received information through “reliable sources” that certain radicalised youth of Jammu & Kashmir had pledged allegiance with banned terrorist organisations. According to the prosecution’s case, four men. including present accused Parvaiz Rashid Lone and Jamsheed Paul, were procuring sophisticated weapons through their contacts in Uttar Pradesh for the purpose of terrorist activities. However, out of the total four men, the other two could not be arrested as one died while the other one was never caught.
The accused had pledged allegiance to a banned terrorist organisation, the prosecution alleged, adding that they came to Netaji Subhash Park, near Lal Quila, to pick up the arms and ammunition for executing some terrorist acts in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the police said they caught them at the bus stop before their departure, and interrogated them.
After interrogation and searching the accused, the policemen found one pistol of 7.65 mm calibre, along with five cartridges. Subsequently, the men were charged with offences like conspiracy, membership of terrorist organisations and illegal possession of arms, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and the Arms & Ammunition Act, respectively.
On the other hand, the accused had argued that the weapons had been planted by the police officials of Special Cell. They also maintained that they never met any terrorist organisation member and that the arrest was merely based on suspicion of an alleged meeting.
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Why court set them free
Following their eight-year-long imprisonment, the court set the two accused free on March 19 on account of the prosecution’s failure to establish the case beyond reasonable doubt.
In doing so, the court acquitted them, and directed that, “Both the said accused persons be released from judicial custody, if not required to be detained in any other case.”
One of the key pieces of evidence that the prosecution had presented before the court were Blackberry Messenger or BBM chats, but the accused persons maintained that they had never even used that type of phone in their life. “The prosecution has also failed to prove that during the said period prior to 06.09.2018, both the accused persons were found to be members of ISIS which is a banned terrorist organization and is involved in committing terrorist acts,” the court noted while adding that the police failed to prove that they were members of any terrorist organisation before they arrested them.
Raising suspicions of evidence tampering in this case, the court said that “no satisfactory explanation has been offered” for why the accused’s mobile phones were in the prolonged custody of the policemen for months, as opposed to being sent for forensic examination. The mobiles were seized in September 2018 and sent to the forensics department in November that year.
“It raises a strong doubt of tampering with the said mobile phones as without any plausible or satisfactory explanation the prolonged custody of the said devices remained with the IOs, and that too in an unsealed condition,” the court said while rejecting the screenshots given in the chats contained in those phones as well.
The court also said that basing the entire trial on electronic records makes it more susceptible to tampering, alteration and transposition, and that safeguards should be taken to ensure the source and authenticity of the evidence, otherwise it can lead to the travesty of justice.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)