On 8th May, Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, who was accused of an alleged role in the 2008 Malegaon blast under the UPA government, disclosed that Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officers illegally questioned and tortured him to name prominent right-wing leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) including Yogi Adityanath.
Current UP CM Yogi Adityanath was the MP from Gorakhpur at that time.
He put forward the charge in a written statement presented before the NIA Special Court, pursuant to Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Lt Col Purohit stated in his 23-page testimony that he was tortured and forced to accept the blame for the explosion by senior Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) personnel.
The officer unveiled that he was brought into custody on 29th October 2008, even though the ATS did not record him as arrested and expressed that while he was not even formally detained, ATS had leaked bogus material to media outlets that reported on the agency’s success in breaking the case and naming him, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and others as the accused.
He mentioned that in August 2008, over a month prior to the Malegaon blast, “out of nowhere, the President of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) at a rally of party workers in Alibaug made a statement that it is not just that there are Islamic terrorists, but there are Hindu terrorists also. This is the first time the term ‘Hindu Terror’ was coined. This soothsaying statement was immediately followed by the unfortunate incident on September 29, 2008.”
He maintained that to “suit the political requirements” of the ruling government, a “fabricated” inquiry into the issue was conducted on the directions of former IPS officer Param Bir Singh, the late Hemant Karkare, who was the head of the Maharashtra ATS and others. He expressed that shortly after his arrest in Mumbai, he was transferred to a remote bungalow in Khandala to be grilled by the late Hemant Karkare and Param Bir Singh, the then ATS’s joint commissioner and others.
He conveyed, “Karkare and Param Bir Singh were time and again forcing me to give out the details of my intelligence network and, a list of my sources and assets who had assisted me in mapping SIMI and ISI and Dr Zakir Naik’s activities. I refused to divulge my source network as it is against the basic ethos of intelligence.” He went into further detail about how his senior army commander, Colonel PK Shrivastav, who is now retired, “stabbed him in the back” before turning him over to the ATS. His superior was the first one to strike him in police custody. He was then attacked by Param Bir Singh as well as he was restrained by six of the constables.
The Army official highlighted, “I was meted with treatment which not even any animal would experience and was treated worse than a prisoner of war of an enemy country. Karkare, Param Bir Singh and Col Shrivastav continued insisting that I should own up to the Malegaon bomb blast and that I should name senior right-wing leaders of the RSS and VHP, Yogi Adityanath, the then Member of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh. This torture continued incessantly till 3rd Nov 2008.”
He voiced that he could not even walk because of a fractured knee resulting from the abuse he endured. He added that his “custodial assassination was confirmed” as he was told preparations were underway to shoot him. He submitted that the officials had planted explosives and faked evidence, including RDX and accused them of being complicit in the extrajudicial executions of a witness, Sandeep Dange and wanted perpetrator Ramchandra Kalsangra.
Colonel Purohit argued that it was obvious that the entire case against him was orchestrated since witnesses began to become hostile which demonstrated that they had been coerced into making false statements by the ATS or their political overlords and that they had even been threatened, tortured, and apprehended sometimes at gunpoint. He remarked that they had permanently damaged the army’s prestige, undermined intelligence personnel’s morale and jeopardized national security.
Dawood met Naxal leader, wanted to supply arms from ISI to Naxal terrorists
He contended that his phone was unlawfully tapped and that there were “malafide intentions” behind the approval of his and others’ prosecution under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He outlined that as an intelligence official, he started investigating “fugitive terror accused and ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agent” Dawood Ibrahim and his encounter with declared fugitive Dr Ganapati, a prominent member of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) central committee.
“The meeting was to streamline the arms, ammunition, war-like stores and drug supply from ISI, Pakistan, to left-wing extremists and Naxalites in Dandakaranya special committee zone operating in entire peninsular India, especially after these supplies stopped getting into India from Nepal,” he mentioned. He declared that a second such report from 2006–07 focused on the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Zakir Naik, who is currently on the run and his illicit funding. He insisted on closely examining the rise of left-wing extremism and Naxalism before starting work on a report. According to him, a few local and national officials were named in the papers.
After being formally shown as arrested on 5th November 2008 Col Purohit established that the ATS had constructed a narrative of “investigation around the individuals whom they always wanted to arrest, probably as directed by their political masters, and the case was built around the targeted individuals who are now accused.”
Viral Babar, Purohit’s attorney, delivered the written statement to the special court. All of the suspects who are facing charges for their alleged involvement in the explosion have been recording their testimony in the special court. The statements made by Col Purohit and a few other accused parties in opposition to the prosecution’s evidence have been completed by the court.
Malegaon blast case
The case concerns the events of 29th September 2008, at about 9:30 pm when a bomb concealed on a motorcycle exploded close to Hamidia Masjid in Malegaon, a textile town in the Nasik region of North Maharashtra that is sensitive to sectarian sentiments. The blast resulted in the deaths of six people and the injuries of 101 others. The ATS unit of the Maharashtra Police first probed the incident before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over in 2011. Col Purohit was accused of being a part of Abhinav Bharat, a trust established to uphold Hindu ideals but which was also accused of using him as a cover for assaults against Muslims. Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also arrested in the case.
After spending years in custody, Lt Col Purohit was finally granted bail in August 2017.