The Hindu : Police motivated 'to fabricate evidence against Geelani'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 21, 2003

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Police motivated 'to fabricate evidence against Geelani'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 20. At the appeal hearing in the December 13 Parliament attack case, the police's conduct of the investigation was put under scrutiny.

The defence counsel, Ram Jethmalani told the court that if an investigation was proven to be bad it vitiated the trial itself. The investigating officers had failed to inform his client of his right to legal counsel not once but twice. First at the time of his arrest and then again a few days later, when the arrests were registered under POTA.

Earlier, Mr. Jethmalani said that the police had no evidence against his client, S. A. R. Geelani, and therefore permitted the media to interview Mohammed Afzal, while he was in their custody, in the expectation that, at their behest, he would implicate Geelani. However, Afzal did the opposite, declaring that Geelani knew nothing of the attack or the attackers.

The police was motivated by a need to "fabricate evidence against Geelani". One of the key questions put to him was whether he had seen any literature concerning Osama bin Laden with Geelani. Mr. Jethmalani said that although the police claimed to have arrested Geelani outside his house they did not search his house at any time during the investigation. What lay behind the question put to Afzal about Geelani was a desire to "create anger and prejudice in the minds of people so no one would be able to do fair justice to him". Further, Mr. Jethmalani said, the Investigating Officer, ACP, Rajbir Singh, had lied under oath, claiming that he was not present at the time of the interview. The DCP, Ashok Chand, who had granted permission for the interviews, had told the court he could not recall if Afzal had appeared before the media. However, Shams Tahir Khan, the journalist from Aaj Tak TV had, in his testimony before the trial court and in the course of cross-examination, stated that Rajbir Singh was present during the interview, that he had shouted at Afzal warning him not to say anything about Geelani and had also asked the him to edit out the sections relating to Geelani.

Mr. Jethmalani said that the police's conduct amounted to a gross misuse of the trust of the court and the statutory order that an extension of police remand is for the purpose of investigation under Cr.P.C. If a person was in a position to make such a confession then it was the duty of the police to get it recorded properly so that it was admissible as evidence.

Mr. Jethmalani said that even a draconian law like POTA has safeguards against the improper recording of confessional statements. "When you expose a person to the media", he said, "you are evading all the requirements of POTA". Mohammed Afzal's formal confession the following day, in which he did implicate Geelani was vitiated by the fact that "conflicting confessions on two successive days, render each unproved, improbable and doubtful". Mr. Jethmalani also dealt with the intercepted conversation between Geelani and his brother Shah Faisal, which the police had used as the primary evidence against him. The defence had shown that the particular exchange said to implicate Geelani ("What have you done?" In Delhi" "It was necessary") does not occur on the taped intercept. But, Mr. Jethmalani said that even the argument the prosecution has made on its basis falls unless it is proven that Shah Faisal knew about the conspiracy and his brother's role in it. The police, however, told the trial court that Shah Faisal's statement at the time of his interrogation was not recorded because he was an "interested witness"; and that he had not been made an accused because nothing was found against him.

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