The special NIA court in Hyderabad did not rely on the deposition made by the metropolitan magistrate that Swami Aseemanand confessed to his role in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case.
Metropolitan magistrate (PW165) at Tees Hazari court in Delhi told NIA judge Ravinder Reddy that Aseemanand confessed “without any fear, force, coercion or inducement or threat by the CBI, the police or any other person,” says the order accessed by The Hindu .
The special NIA court in Hyderabad acquitted five accused, including former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member Aseemanand, on April 16. Nine persons were killed in the blast that was carried out using an improvised explosive device.
Time to rethink
More than 60 witnesses turned hostile in the case, but the magistrate in whose presence the statement was recorded deposed before the NIA court that he gave time to the [then] accused to “reflect on and re-think” his decision to confess and sent him to judicial custody for two days. Aseemanand was lodged in Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad and he was taken by the CBI, which initially investigated the case, to Delhi on December 16, 2012 to record his statement. Aseemanand retracted the confession after four months.
The case was handed over to National Investigation Agency in 2011.
To ensure that Aseemanand was not under any pressure, the magistrate asked CBI officer Rajah Balaji to send him to Tihar jail so that he could sleep over his decision to confess. During cross-examination, it was revealed that Aseemanand could not be sent to jail as the last bus for Tihar had left for the day and he remained in police custody till December 18 when the statement was recorded under 164 Cr.PC.
‘Not voluntary’
NIA Judge Reddy said in his order that there was no proper explanation why the CBI officer was in a hurry to record the confessional statement in Delhi when he had ample opportunity to do so in Hyderabad. “The court holds that the confessional statement of A-6 (Aseemanand) is hit by Section 26 of the Indian Evidence Act. The confessional statement was not a voluntary one, which was recorded during police custody,” the order said.
In his confessional statement, Aseemanand had said that he and other activists were involved in bombings at various places of worship across the country, such as Ajmer Sharif and Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, and Samjhauta Express for taking revenge against the “terror acts of Muslims.”
Hate speeches
Aseemanand is on bail in the Samjhauta case and was acquitted in Ajmer Dargah case last year. The court also did not rely on deposition made by Jharkhand intelligence officer that the main accused Devinder Gupta, a member of the RSS, gave hate speeches in Jamtara, Jharkhand. “The oral evidence of PW 216 does not give any evidence that Gupta was giving hate speeches. Had it been so, PW 216 would have definitely reported the same to the superior officers, thereby an action would have been initiated. Nothing is there on record that he was booked in any case of alleged speeches in Jamtara area. The RSS is not a proscribed organisation and if any person works in it, it does not give any scope that he is communal and anti social.”
Gupta has been convicted in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah blast case.
