Author: Stavan Desai / Menaka Rao
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 22, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/19125.html
Introduction: Case handed over to CBI, ATS
rushes to file chargesheet, silent on RDX trail
Hours before the September 8 Malegaon serial
blasts case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terrorist
Squad of the Maharashtra Police today filed the chargesheet in the case, claiming
that its investigations were complete.
The ATS contends that the nine accused, who
are allegedly active members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India
(SIMI), had hatched and executed the conspiracy with the help of two Pakistanis
in the textile town to "infuriate the entire Muslim community and trigger
communal riots''.
Thirty-one people died and 312 were injured
in four blasts, of which three were inside the Hamidiya Masjid and Bara Kabrastan.
The fourth was at Mushawart Chowk.
The Malegaon blasts chargesheet is clear about
the motive but, unlike the July 11 Mumbai serial blasts chargesheet, it fails
to establish the identities of the two Pakistanis. All that it says is that
one of the Pakistanis is ''learnt to be Muzammil'', while the other is unidentified.
Investigations have also failed to establish
the identities of the two men who had bought the bicycles that were used to
plant the bombs, though the ATS claims in the chargesheet that the prime conspirators
and the planters have been arrested.
The chargesheet does not say how the 20 kg
of RDX and other explosives used in the blasts reached Malegaon from Mumbai.
It says the explosives were brought to Mumbai in the third week of July, after
7/11, by SIMI activists Mohammed Ali Sheikh and Asif Khan alias Junaid. And
that they handed it over to prime accused Shabbir Ahmed Masiullah.
The chargesheet does not explain where Mohammed
Ali Sheikh and Junaid got the explosives. Neither does it say why the police
did not know about the involvement of Masiullah - who had been arrested by
the Mumbai Police Crime Branch on August 11 - till three months after his
arrest, which was almost a month before the Malegaon blasts.
According to the chargesheet, the constituents
of the Malegaon bombs were the same as those used in the 7/11 blasts, but
it does not say from where the detonators and parts for the electronic circuits
were procured. And like the 7/11chargesheet, the Malegaon chargesheet too
has been filed by the ATS without the state government sanction to prosecute
the nine arrested SIMI activists for "waging a war against the Government
of India, for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion''
and under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Passport
Act.
Charges have also been filed using sections
of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), MCOCA and Explosive Substances Act.
