Bureau Report
The Daily Mail
Friday, 18 December 2009.
NEW DELHI, India—The Indian police authorities and the officials of India’s notorious intelligence agency RAW are known for creating fake terrorists with fake links to Pakistan. Ajmal Kasab & company were not the first in this exercise. RAW and Indian police are practicing this art for years now. In a recent development, a daring Indian lawyer exposed one such drama and proved how the Indian police and RAW officials frame innocent people to prove them to be terrorists from Pakistan.
According to details, criminal lawyer M. S. Khan succeeded in proving the innocence of two Indian men who were alleged to be associates of a Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba divisional commander.
Here is the Indian version of the story, with the usual spicy plot details that the Indians prefer in their film plots:
In September 2006, the Delhi Police received information that Pakistan-based divisional commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Mohammad Akmal alias Abu Tahir is planning to send his associates to Delhi and other parts of the country.
A team was constituted under late Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma to nab the terrorists, if they managed to enter the national capital. Following a tip-off, the Delhi police mounted a ‘technical surveillance’ and deployed ‘sources’ to track the terrorists. Surveillance reportedly revealed Mohammad Akmal sent one Mustafa along with another person to Delhi to carry out the mission. It further exposed that Mustafa and his associates were operating from their hideout at Mahipalpur.
On December 11, 2006, the police got a tip-off that the two men would come from Dhaula Kuan to Mahipalpur crossing. A Delhi police team was deployed at the spot. At 9.15 pm, the police informer spotted the two accused alighting from a blueline bus (number DL 1PB 0249) plying on route number 729 (Kapashera to Mori Gate).
Fifteen sticks of some yellow explosives, few detonators and Rs 6 lakh in Indian currency were reportedly seized from them. The terrorists were later identified as Gulzar Ahmed Ganai alias Mustafa and Mohammad Ameen Hazzam and were taken to Mumbai from where they allegedly received the explosives. “The charges against them, included planning and attempt to wage war against the country, collection of arms to wage war, possession of explosives, being members of a banned organisation,” MS Khan told an Indian journalist.
This is how he the Indian lawyer tore apart the police and Indian intelligence case in the court:
Prosecution: Secret information established the two accused were Lashkar militants.
Khan: Neither could they establish the nature of the information nor produce any supporting evidence.
Prosecution: The alleged terrorists were arrested on the basis of technical surveillance.
Khan: The cops were never able to establish the nature and scope of their surveillance.
Prosecution: The cops mentioned the ultras had a hideout in Mahipalpur area.
Khan: When asked the location of the hideout, the cops themselves were clueless.
Prosecution: The cops claimed to have arrested the terrorists from a bus around 9.15 pm and produced tickets as evidence.
Khan: When asked the bus conductor told the court that the bus was not even plying at that time and the tickets produced were from the lot used around 11.50 am.
Prosecution: The cops said the militants were there at Dhaula Kuan.
Khan: The police were clueless from where they came to Dhaula Kuan.
Prosecution: It was alleged that the ultras had come to collect hawala money amounting to Rs 6 lakh in cash.
Khan: No evidence was produced to establish who gave them the money and when.
Prosecution: The police said the accused had come to Delhi from outside.
Khan: They could not establish from where they came. Also, no evidence was produced to establish they went to Mumbai to acquire explosives.
Prosecution: The police produced photographs of the crime scene.
Khan: As stated earlier, the photographs were not of Mahipalpur and no cop could be seen in them.
Prosecution: ACP Sanjeev Yadav told the court that one Ganai told the police about the hideout in Mahipalpur on December 14.
Khan: Ganai was taken to Mumbai on December 13 by a Delhi police team. How could he have revealed anything?
NY Times
A Pakistani man who confessed in court to being one of the gunmen in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last year recanted on Friday, saying the Indian police had framed him. A gunman, who was later identified as Mohammed Ajmal Kasab at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai in November 2008.
It was the latest flip-flop from the suspect, Ajmal Kasab, who made a dramatic and detailed confession in July, explaining his role as one of 10 Pakistanis who attacked two luxury hotels, a busy train station and a Jewish center, killing more than 160 people over three days in November 2008. Photographs and security tape show him and a partner firing at commuters at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and dozens of witnesses have identified him. Nine of the attackers were killed in battles with the police.
Mr. Kasab, 21, confessed when he was arrested at the time of the attacks, but pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial and said the police had tortured him. His trial, on charges that include murder and waging war on India, began in April.
In his confession in July, however, he appeared to confirm his guilt and said he wanted to be hanged. He described how he and an accomplice, Abu Ismail, had prowled the train station with automatic weapons and hand grenades. They killed more than 50 people, he said.
In court two days later, Mr. Kasab insisted that his admission was not an attempt to avoid the death penalty. “If anybody is worried that I am trying to escape death by hanging, I’m not,” he declared in court. “If that’s the punishment I am given, so be it.”
At the time, the judge accepted his confession into the record but said the trial would go on.
On Friday, he told the court he had arrived in Mumbai 20 days before the attacks started. He said the police picked him up a few days before Nov. 26, the first night of the assault. He said the police later shot him to make it look as if he had been involved in the attack.
Mr. Kasab said it was only after his arrest that he encountered David C. Headley, the American who was charged with helping identify targets in Mumbai for the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Mr. Kasab said several F.B.I. agents were with Mr. Headley when the two men were brought together. Mr. Headley has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Kasab’s previous lawyer, who was recently dismissed by the judge overseeing the case, has expressed concerns about Mr. Kasab’s mental stability. Mr. Kasab is in solitary confinement in a fortified cell built for him in one of the city’s oldest jails.
It appeared unlikely that Mr. Kasab’s latest statements would have a big impact on the trial. The prosecution finished presenting its case earlier this week.
Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Hong Kong
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