The Hindu : Parliament attack case: `Police fudged documents'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 28, 2003

National

National

Parliament attack case: `Police fudged documents'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 27. Police investigating the Parliament attack case deliberately fudged documents, including the FIR (No.417), in order to side-step the safeguards of POTO, Shanti Bhushan, counsel for Shaukat Hussain Guru, told the Delhi High Court today.

The prosecution has maintained that the first time the charges under POTO were listed against Shaukat Hussain Guru, Mohammed Afzal, S.A.R. Geelani and Afsan Guru — the four accused in the case, was on December 19.

Mr. Bhushan said that a letter of reply from the mobile phone company Air Tel to Delhi police, dated 17 December, referring to a letter from the investigating officer dated 13 December suggested otherwise.

It refers to FIR No 417 and offences, including those under sections 3,4,5,21 and 22 of POTO. This suggested that the FIR No. 417, in relation to which police sought information from Air Tel, included offences under POTO.

Mr. Bhushan said that this led to the inference that such an FIR had been drawn up, as Air Tel would not have included a list of offences on its own.

This FIR was, however, never produced in the court. The FIR no 417, which was an exhibit in the trial, made no reference to the offences under POTO.

Mr. Bhushan also dealt with the certificate of authenticity of the mobile phone call records produced by the prosecution. The law, he said, required the person who authenticated the computer print-outs to be a person who regularly worked the computer and took print-outs.

However, the prosecution witnesses did not fulfil this requirement being from the security and administrative departments.

The acceptability in law of the computerised call record was also subject to scrutiny.

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