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Down the drain: A scene from the blast site in Ahmedabad |
The four terror incidents in last two months Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat have left them with more than 800 detainees and off course a trail of destruction.
However, not even a single person has been made an accused. Even the swelling graph of detentions seemed to be a knee jerk reaction from the local police, which failed in getting any single lead in the post-blast investigations.
After the Jaipur blasts the Rajasthan government detained more than 500 people on suspicion and the same has happened in Ahmedabad and Surat where almost 100 and 85 people were detained, respectively.
"Only the number of detainees is increasing everyday. Police, anti-terrorist agencies and the crime branch sleuths have no serious leads in any single case, in fact they are messing up the case every single moment," said a senior intelligence officer from Gujarat while stressing upon the need to tighten up the way evidence is collected in cases of terrorism.
In fact the state governments are also admitting their incompetence in handling such cases, instead of just fingering at the Centre. According to sources, the Rajasthan government has written to the Union Home Ministry to set up a federal investigating agency.
"State home minister Gulab Chand Kataria wrote a letter to the Central government updating it on the investigation carried out by the state police. While he accepted that the state police could not get much success in the case he also asked to set up a federal agency on the lines of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)," said a senior official from Rajasthan government.
Kataria also added that since other states are also facing difficulties in handling terrorism-related cases and the respective state police machinery having failed to get much success, therefore, the time has come to give a serious thought to setting up a federal agency.
The lawyers fraternity in the country, which undertakes the trial of the accused, shares the same opinion.
"In most of the cases the police officials are so confused that instead of collecting evidence they try to create them. They perhaps never think that it is the court which will pronounce the accused as the terrorist," said senior lawyer from Patiala House court M S Khan.
Khan said last year two terror accused were released after a six-year-long trial as the police could not establish the most important evidence in the 2001 serial blasts case in Delhi.
"Two Kashmiri citizens - Gulzar Ahmed Wani and Ghulam Mohiudin Shah- were arrested for exploding two bombs outside Sena Bhavan and South Block in New Delhi. The case was investigated by the special cell officials who managed to reach the shop from where the accused had purchased the bicycles used for planting the bombs," he said.
The cops managed to match the serial number of the cycle from the bill book and eventually seized it. "But here they messed up the entire case. The bill book showed that the cycle with 'C' series was sold but the cycle which was recovered from the blast site had 'O' series," said Khan.
The court, which also noticed the bizarre discrepancy, checked the recovered frame of the cycle and the accused were acquitted.
"The police could have checked the matter before filing the chargesheet and could have saved itself from a serious embarrassment.
"In nutshell the police and investigating agency either fail from arresting the accused or could not collect the evidence properly," said a senior jurist on condition of anonymity.
Khan further added the two acquitted are serving a 10-year long jail term in some other cases related to the similar incident.
Caught and released
The special cell of the Delhi police picked up a 24-year-old man for sending the email to the Japan embassy threatening to blow up the embassy and a few market places
The sleuths picked up Amit Prashar from DLF in Gurgaon and interrogated him at length after which he was found to be mentally unstable
Talking to MiD DAY, a senior police official said, "The man was under depression since 2005 and was undergoing treatment at the VIMHANS hospital in south Delhi. He was disturbed after losing his brother in India. He is innocent. We have not got anything on him."
