The Hindu : Parliament attack case: crucial evidence presented

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2003

National

National

Parliament attack case: crucial evidence presented

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 28. The Delhi High Court bench hearing the appeals in the December 13 Parliament attack case was today presented with the evidence of a laptop computer which is a crucial part of the prosecution's evidence. The Special Prosecutor, Gopal Subramanium, took the court through the evidence of three `expert witnesses' who examined the computer and its contents.

The computer revealed templates of a fake Home Ministry car sticker identical to the one found on the white Ambassador car in which the attackers travelled to Parliament. Images of the identity cards similar to the ones found on the militants were also found on the computer.

The prosecution's claim is that the laptop was seized in Srinagar on December 15, 2001, from a truck in which Shaukat Hussain Guru and Mohammed Afzal were said to have been travelling. Its contention was that they had been given the computer by the dead militants to hand it over to `Ghazibaba,' the `commander' of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Kashmir.

The defence had raised two questions relating to the laptop during the trial. The first was why a backup of the hard disk had not been taken before a private computer technician Vimalkant Arora examined its contents, as it would have been appropriate when a computer was being used as evidence. The Special Prosecutor dealt with this saying that a backup had not been taken because of "secrecy.''

The second related to the last date on which the computer was accessed. Vimal Kant Arora in his evidence gave December 29, 2001, as the last date on which he accessed the computer. However, the Government's computer forensic experts in Hyderabad found that the computer had been accessed on January 21, 2002. Mr. Subramanium argued that the defence had failed to put questions about the legality of this to any of the witnesses. He suggested to Justice Usha Mehar and Justice Pradeep Nandrajog that if the defence had done so they might have received a response that officers of an intelligence agency needed to examine it and had gone to the police store and taken it out.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National