New Delhi, December 3: Key witness and approver in the 2006 Malegaon blast case Abrar Ahmed's revelation that he was pressurized by Maharashtra ATS to take names of the Muslim accused in the case, has ironically become a “hurdle” for National Investigation Agency's (NIA) probe of the case.
Post-Swami Aseemanand's confession of a Hindu hand behind the blast, the NIA was investigating how the nine Muslim men arrested by Maharashtra ATS came to be implicated in the case. NIA had hoped to reach the source of the information that put the nine men behind bars through Abrar.
"That aspect of the case is crucial to the investigation. However, now Abrar is putting the entire blame on ATS, alleging a large conspiracy to implicate Muslim men in which even Lt Col Prasad Purohit was involved," said an NIA officer.
NIA is still not ready to completely believe Abrar's statements which he has made as part of an affidavit to court and also an interview to a news magazine.
"His ATS pressure theory does not seem entirely true. As per our investigation, ATS bought into his information after some confirmation from its own side. That is why it is important to know what was the source of his information and why he is making this statement now," said the officer.
In an interview to a news magazine, Abrar revealed that he implicated the nine men under pressure from ATS and had later met Purohit who asked him to maintain the ATS line. Purohit, who was in military intelligence at the time of the blast, had even generated an input after the blast naming Noorul Huda, the main accused later arrested by ATS.
NIA, which has discussed with Purohit on this, said he told them that he generated the input through interpolation of facts and not based on any genuine information. "It is also possible that he got to know of the ATS line of investigation and generated the input as an alibi just as he did in the case of 2008 Malegaon blast when he generated a similar input about Pragya Singh Thakur. However, it is equally possible that he deliberately misled the investigation (he was in regular touch with ATS those days) and ATS goofed up," said the officer.
Interestingly, though, NIA has as yet not given a clean chit to the nine men arrested by Maharashtra ATS. "We have two versions of an incident and both are equally compelling. While ATS has backed its case with forensic evidence, Aseemanand's confession in light of 2008 Malegaon blast case cannot be ignored. But until we get some evidence prove one of these right or wrong, everyone is a suspect," said the officer.
Aseemanand had earlier made two statements in which he said that there was a plan to use Muslim men to plant bombs in Muslim dominated areas.
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