Named Malegaon accused under ATS torture: witness

Chargesheet filed by the MATS names two unnamed Pakistanis as wanted accused in the case.

A key witness in the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts,whose statements accused three men from the textile town and two Pakistani nationals of involvement in the conspiracy,has informed the National Investigation Agency that he was tortured and forced to make those allegations.

Besides the confessions of seven of the nine men who were arrested in the case and given bail last month,the only other statement that talked about the role of Pakistani nationals was made by this witness,sources told The Indian Express. The NIA is verifying his claims.

The chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad names two unnamed Pakistani nationals as wanted accused in the case.

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In his statement recorded on December 14,2006,the witness had said he was employed at a battery shop in Malegaon and had seen his employer Shabbir Masiullah,one of the nine men arrested,return from Mumbai in the third week of July 2006 with a bag containing black powder.

The next day,the witness said,he was introduced to two Pakistani guests of Masiullah,who along with other accused made bombs in his presence at the battery shops godown.

After the blasts on September 8,2006,in which 37 people were killed,the witness had testified,he had gone to the ATS office in Mumbai and said he suspected the bombs were the same as the ones he had seen being made.

In his new statement to the NIA,the witness claims he had gone to his home state Uttar Pradesh around Ramzan in late September 2006. The next month,he moved out of Malegaon and got a job in Bhiwandi in Thane. He says he was picked by the ATS from Bhiwandi,taken to a local police station and beaten up and then taken to an ATS unit in Mumbai.

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The witness says he was tortured there for 15 days,after which he was taken to a court and asked to narrate a statement prepared by the ATS.

In December 2006,he says,he was made to sign a police statement in Marathi without being told what it contained. On December 18,he was asked to identify and point at two men in an identification parade. He said he did so out of fear of torture.