Mumbai: On a day that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) dropped MCOCA charges against Sadhvi Pragya among five other accused, the NIA has now blamed the Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of using torture to extract confessional statements from the accused and invoking MCOCA provisions against them in the Malegaon blast case.
In the supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, NIA listed several flaws in the ATS’ investigations and also claimed how courts did not believe the confessional statements of the accused.
The NIA said that accused Sudhakar Dwivedi when produced before the magistrate for confirmation of the confessional statement made by him, stated that his confession was the outcome of torture meted out to him.
The agency also said that "dubious" methods adopted during investigation by ATS become crystal clear from the disappearance of one of the main witness.
"The CBI during its investigation in the disappearance of the witness has submitted findings against the officers of the ATS Mumbai," the agency said.
"ATS Mumbai invoked MCOCA on the basis of the involvement of accused Rakesh Dhawade in the previous two blast cases i.e. Parbhani and Jalna in which the concerned courts had taken the cognisance. The way and circumstances in which the ATS invoked the provisions of MCOCA in this case becomes questionable", the NIA chargesheet said.
According to the NIA chargesheet a case was registered in November 2003 in Parbhani bomb blasts. The chargesheet was filed against two accused persons Sanjay Choudhary and Himanshu Panse. While in September 2006 first supplementary chargesheet was filed against accused Maruthi Keshav Wagh and Yogesh Deshpande.
"The second supplementary chargesheet was filed against accused Dhawade on Novmber 13, 2008 after his arrest on November 11, 2008 i.e within two days of his arrest (in Parbhani case)," the NIA said.
"This raises considerable doubt on the integrity of invoking of MCOCA by ATS," the chargesheet said.
(With PTI inputs)
