Shaukatullah Ghauri, the alleged key conspirator in the Akshardham Temple attack case of 2002, has retracted from his confessional statement and has alleged before a designated POTA court that the police had forcibly recorded his statement.

He said this in a retraction filed through his defence counsel D J Parmar in the court of designated POTA judge Jyotsana Yagnik last Monday. Ghauri said the Ahmedabad police Detection of Crime Branch (DCB), the investigating agency, had on July 31, forced him to sign certain papers by threatening to implicate his family members in the case.

The retraction is based on Ghauri’s revelations to Parmar during their meeting in the Sabarmati Central Jail on August 1. Ghauri said he was handed two letters in Hindi during his stay in the jail and that the DCB officers later forced him to sign certain papers. A copy of the retraction letter is with The Indian Express.

Hyderabad police had arrested Ghauri, a suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative, on July 18. The DCB then obtained a transit remand from a court there, and on July 20, produced him before a designated POTA court and sought a 30-day remand on 11 grounds. The court sent Ghauri to police custody till August 3. The DCB, however, produced him before the court on July 31 and submitted his confessional statement recorded under Section 32 of POTA.

Ghauri, a close associate of alleged mastermind of the attack, Abu Hamza, according to the DCB, had attended meetings in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and later at Hyderabad in 2002 as part of the conspiracy. Ghauri is also accused of raising funds for the attack, said the DCB.

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