A Mumbai police officer on Monday admitted before a special court that he had committed a goof up in preparing labels for the articles recovered from Hotel Taj and Nariman House, targeted by terrorists Mumbai attacks.
Articles recovered from Taj were shown to have been recovered from Nariman House and vice versa as labels pasted on them got interchanged while preparing a 'panchnama'.
"I may have committed mistake as I was overstressed... I did not go home for four days after terror attacks and was on duty all the 24 hours from November 26", said Manesingh Patil, police inspector of Colaba police station.
The articles seized from the terror sites included Ak-47 rifles, magazines, bullets, Global Positioning System (GPS), mobiles and live cartridges.
To a query by judge M L Tahaliyani as to how many AK-47 rifles had been seized, the witness said "I do not remember".
This prompted the judge to ask, "You are a senior officer, how do you say that you do not remember?".
Lone surviving Pakistani gunman Ajmal Kasab and two Indians, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, are facing the trial on charges of killing 166 persons and injuring many others during the attacks.
Inspector Patil said he had drawn six 'panchnamas' in the presence of five independent witnesses.
About the age of a witness Narain Shetty, Patil told Defence lawyer Abbas Kazmi "he must have been in the age group of 35 to 40. But when he was confronted with the 'panchnama', it showed his age as 66.
Another witness, Eion Machael Pinto, working for an embalming company, said bodies of seven foreigners killed in the terror attacks were sent to Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Germany by aircraft.
In another development, National Security Guard Commando (NSG) Lt Col R K Sharma would depose in the court on Tuesday to throw light on how he had led a team to confront terrorists at Hotel Oberoi on November 26 last year.
Lt Col Sharma has been summoned to appear as the court witness after prosecution said it did not wish to examine any NSG commando because their anti-terror techniques should not be exposed in public. PTI
