Friends turn complainants against Purohit

Complaints by childhood friends have meant fresh trouble for Lt Col Prasad Purohit, arrested in the Malegaon blast case.

Complaints by childhood friends have meant fresh trouble for Lt Col Prasad Purohit, arrested in the Malegaon blast case.

Purohit was remanded to the custody of the Pune ATS after two brothers whom he went to school with, who were also his neighbours, complained that he had used forged documents to procure arms licences for them through the Army quota.

Purohit was taken to Pune on Tuesday to probe his role in the complaint by one of the brothers, Milind Date. Milind’s younger brother Shirish had lodged a similar complaint on Saturday with the Sarkarwada police station in Nashik. The Nashik Crime Branch is investigating the case, and is likely to take Purohit into its custody soon for questioning, the police said.

The Date family, sources said, were friends of Purohit and stayed in the Erandwana area of Pune near his residence. The Date brothers also studied in the same Abhinav School in Pune as Purohit.

According to the ATS, when Purohit was posted in Deolali in 2005, he learnt that the Date brothers were interested in getting a firearm licence. He is said to have volunteered to get them one under the Army quota. Purohit allegedly got Milind to sign the application form and procured a licence for him showing him to be ‘Major Milind Date’ of Pune.

However, Milind apparently did not approve of this and returned it back to Purohit for cancellation. Purohit then allegedly used the licence to procure a double-barrel rifle from Satara.