14 years after arrest, case of Tihar’s Pak inmate splits SC

Vijaita Singh, New Delhi, Tue, Jan 17, 2012

Mohammad Hussain, a Pakistan national sentenced to death for his alleged role in the 1997 Delhi blast case, came to the city with a delegation of 25 students from his country when the incident took place, his counsel said.

Hussain, who was 21 years old at the time of his arrest, has been in prison for 14 years.

He was arrested by the Inter State Cell of the Crime Branch after a blast in a Blueline bus killed four persons and injured 24 on December 30, 1997.

Hussain was picked up on February 2, 1998.

On January 11, a division bench of the Supreme Court gave a split verdict on Hussain’s appeal against the conviction and death sentence.

While Justice H L Dattu said a fresh trial should be conducted as the witnesses were not cross-examined by the accused, Justice C K Prasad did not hold the same view. The matter has been referred to the Chief Justice.

Police maintain that Hussain’s arrest helped them get to the bottom of 32 serial blasts that took place in Delhi then. The blasts were carried out at the behest of Pakistan’s ISI and Hussain had been chosen by Abdul Karim Tunda of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, police said.

According to police, Hussain was arrested from a house in Lajpat Nagar where he had been hiding. Three others arrested with Hussain were acquitted.

Mobin Akhtar, Hussain’s counsel, has a different account. “I met him in jail. He told me he had come to Delhi as part of a student delegation on a four-city tour. From Delhi, he went to Agra and from there to Jaipur with one of his friends without informing officials. He told me he was in Jaipur when he was picked up by police. He was later paraded as a suspect in the bomb blast case,” he said.

Currently lodged in Tihar Jail, Hussain told his lawyer he was a first-year college student at the time of his arrest.

“He said he is from Pakistan Punjab and has two siblings. In all these years, he has had contact with his family only once. That was when he received a letter from his brother,” Akhtar said.

“He told me he came to Delhi in January 1998. That was after the blast. His passport was never found on him nor were other documents handed to him. He said he was detained by police and kept in custody for quite some time,” Akhtar said.

The police, however, maintain that it was Hussain who placed a bag containing explosives below a seat reserved for women on the bus. “While he purchased a ticket for Nangloi, he got down at Karol Bagh and, minutes later, the bomb exploded,” the police chargesheet said.

Police presented 65 witnesses. Only the bus conductor identified Hussain.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/14-years-after-arrest-case-of-tihars-pak-inmate-splits-sc/900395/0

2,500 Tihar inmates granted remission

Abhishek Sharan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, January 27, 2012

On May 20, Suresh Kumar would be able to give his six-year-old son an unlikely birthday gift by attending the celebrations at their Munirka residence. Kumar, who was convicted for attempt to murder and is lodged at Tihar Jail, was given a 45-day remission in his jail-term.

Kumar was among the Jail’s 2,500 inmates who were granted remission in their sentences on the occasion of the country’s 63rd Republic Day by the Delhi Lieutenant Governor.

The remission was granted to convicts on the basis of their good conduct, said a jail source. “Convicts who were charged with serious offences including those covered under Narcotics Drugs Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act were excluded from the remission grant,” said the source.

The minimum remission was of 15 days, the maximum of 60 days.

“The remission is sought to encourage convicts to improve their conduct, to shun negative instincts and get reformed,: said  prison’s Law Officer Sunil Gupta.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/2-500-Tihar-inmates-granted-remission/Article1-802633.aspx

‘I pleaded with cops to find my husband, but no one listened

Express news service : New Delhi, Fri, Jan 27, 2012

The inter-state coordination and use of ZIP net software to share information, which the Delhi Police highlights among its strenghts, failed the test when a 30-year-old woman knocked on the doors of a police station at least 50 times in the last five months searching for her missing husband. Sarita, mother of three, received no news of her husband, even though his body had been lying abandoned in a mortuary all the while.

Sarita sat alone at her one-room rented house in West Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, trying hard to come to terms with the harassment she faced from the police. Her husband Saroj was found in an unconscious state by the police officials of the Nihal Vihar station in September last year. Saroj died at the hospital on September 18, but instead of trying to trace his family, police packed off his body to DDU Hospital mortuary.

“In the last six months, I must have been to the Uttam Nagar police station at least four times a week. The duty officials stopped listening to my plea after the first two visits. I thought they would have a change of heart and make an effort to trace my husband, but they never bothered to check the other police stations. One of them also threw me out of the police station two months ago,” she said.

Married at a young age, Sarita said she had spent 19 years with her husband and regretted the evening of September 2 when she allowed him to go out and meet his friends.

Additional Commissioner of Police of the district, V Renganathan, told the family that on September 4 Saroj was found in an inebriated state near a drain in Nihal Vihar. He did inform the police about his father’s name and locality where he lived in Uttam Nagar, but police did not work on the information.

It was only during a routine police check at DDU Hospital police post last time that the information about the body was conveyed to other police stations and Saroj’s family was traced.

Two years ago, Sarita had lost her son when he fell off the terrace while playing with his friends.

Her husband was the only breadwinner in the family, and Sarita is worried about the future of her children. Saroj worked at a factory and earned Rs 5,000 per month. “There is no one to take care of us. I have taken loans from my neighbours to pay for the fare of autos for my trips to the police station. We will go back to our village now,” she said.

Two ASIs from the Nihal Vihar police station and a head constable from Uttam Nagar police station have been suspended. However, no action has been taken against the SHOs of both the police stations. The police are yet to ascertain the cause of Saroj’s death.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/i-pleaded-with-cops-to-find-my-husband-but-no-one-listened/904408/0