Anti-Terrorist Squad Lands in Yet Another Controversy

Shahid Raza Burney, Arab News
Saturday, 11, November, 2006 (20, Shawwal, 1427)

MUMBAI, 11 November 2006 — Crumbling under the allegations of torture and retraction of confessional statements by nearly all the accused held in the July serial train blasts, the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra police has landed in yet another controversy.
Kamal Ansari and Asif Khan Bashir Khan alias Junaid, the duo held for the July train blasts on Thursday evening, submitted written applications to special judge Mridula Bhatkar of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Activities (MCOCA) court accusing the Anti-Terrorist Squad officials of resorting to torture, threats and monetary inducements for extracting confessions.
Ansari, a resident of Madhubani in Bihar, alleged in his statement that while in police custody, the ATS officials tortured him and forced him to confess and made him sign on blank documents. Further, Ansari stated, that the ATS officials threatened that if failed to cooperate with the police, then his brother too would be arrested and falsely implicated in a false case.
Ansari accused ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi of offering him half a million Indian Rupees, for giving a confessional statement. Alleging that Raghuvanshi also promised to release him, Ansari said that this with a condition if he turned approver and did what was told to him by the ATS officials.
Asif Khan Bashir Khan alias Junaid, alleged in his written statement that senior ATS police inspector Deshmukh also threatened him that if he failed to confess then Deshmukh would "rape my wife and mother" and also falsely implicate my brother and father, and that my children would be sent to remand home. During interrogation, Junaid alleged that the police officials threatened him that he would be implicated in Malegaon blasts too.
Meanwhile, Muslims in Malegaon, in Nashik district, on Friday observed a 'black day' in protest against the police targeting innocent Muslims in the Malegaon blast case. The decision to hold the protest on Friday was decided last evening by the Ulemas and Clerics of Malegaon, except by the Jamat-e-Ulema, which stated that their organization would remain neutral on the issue.
The Janata Dal (Secular) has also threatened that it would observe a total strike in Malegaon on Nov. 14, the day when Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is scheduled to visit the town to perform the foundation stone laying ceremony for a government hospital.

originally published in arab news
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