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ATS to interrogate Purohit in forgery case
Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Srikant Purohit being produced at a Nashik court on Tuesday.
Nashik: The Malegaon blast suspect, Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit, was handed over to the Pune unit of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Tuesday for interrogation in a case of cheating and forgery.
In the Malegaon case, additional judge at the Nashik court H.K. Ganatra remanded Lt. Col. Purohit to judicial custody till November 29. The Pune unit of the ATS now wants to interrogate him in connection with the case of cheating and forgery registered at the Shivaji Nagar police station, Pune, on November 4, 2008.
Accordingly, Lt. Col. Purohit will be produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) at Shivaji Nagar on Wednesday.
If he is remanded to police custody, he will be with the Pune ATS while being under judicial custody.
The Pune case pertains to using forged documents for a weapon. It was registered by Yashwant Date, said ATS special prosecutor Ajay Misar.
It is under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (punishment for forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 474 (possessing court record/public register/valuable security, knowing it to be forged and intending to use it as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code. The ATS becomes the investigating agency whenever explosives or ammunition are involved, said Mr. Misar.
Another case of forgery has reportedly been registered against Lt. Col. Purohit at the Sarkarwada police station, Nashik. However, neither Lt. Col. Purohit’s lawyer Avinash Bhide, nor Mr. Misar is aware of this case yet. “The [FIR] copy has not reached the court,” Mr. Bhide told reporters. The case was reportedly registered on Saturday and the Nashik Crime branch is believed to be looking into it.
Meanwhile, another Malegaon blast suspect, Sameer Kulkarni, will also be produced in the Pune court on Wednesday in connection with a case registered in Khadki, Pune, in 2007. The case pertains to an attack on pastor Peter David Silway of the Vineyard Workers Church at Bopodi. He is now in judicial custody for the Malegaon case.
An application by advocate V.R. Gaikwad, seeking inspection of ATS records of all the accused in the Malegaon blast case, was submitted to the Nashik court. It was moved in the context of the alleged violations of human rights of suspects in ATS’ custody.
Mr. Gaikwad, who does not represent any of the accused persons, cited that Section 5 of the Criminal Manual allowed the lawyer to inspect records. Rules 5 and 8 of the Manual allowed a third party to inspect records provided an affidavit is submitted, he argued. The order on this application is yet to be passed.
The blast investigation is still on and Mr. Misar did not indicate any time frame for the filing of a charge sheet. “As per the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.PC), Sections 156 and 157 pertain to investigation and Section 167 is the stage for seeking remand. The third stage is the filing of a charge sheet under Section 173,” Mr. Misar told the media.
Responding to questions on the duration of remand for various suspects and related evidence against them, he said, “The court has given the remand according to the case diaries submitted to it. The court order of November 3 states that the investigation is going in the right direction and there is sufficient evidence,” he said.
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