Terror blasts accused gets pay from Indian Army

Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit

Rahul Singh.

Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Purohit, who was allegedly involved in the September 2008 Malegaon blasts and is currently lodged in a Maharashtra jail, continues to draw his pay and allowances from the army, despite serious terror charges against him.

According to information revealed under the RTI Act, Purohit “is in full receipt of pay and allowances till date.”

The reply said the principal controller of Defence Accounts in Pune has not received any communication regarding the “judiciary matters” concerning Purohit for further action relating to pay and allowances.

The NIA has sought Purohit’s custodial interrogation but the matter is pending before the Supreme Court.

After Purohit was arrested in November 2008, the army had ordered a court of inquiry which recommended that the officer be dismissed from service.

But Purohit, a military intelligence officer, challenged the findings of the probe in the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), claiming the key witnesses had been examined in his absence and he wasn’t given the chance to cross-examine them.

The AFT directed the army to conduct a fresh probe. Army sources said the second inquiry had been completed and the report had been sent to the defence ministry.

“Purohit remains a serving army officer till the time he is not dismissed. Serving officers are entitled to full pays,” a senior officer said.

via Hindustan Times.

Malegaon blast: SC rejects interim bail for Colonel Purohit

Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the bail plea of Lt Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit and other accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.

The Military Intelligence officer is facing two separate trials, one is being handled by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the other one is Army’s Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the matter.

Earlier in June this year, the Malegaon blast accused had said he had “infiltrated” the Hindu radical outfit Abhinav Bharat and did his job properly and also kept his bosses in the loop.

In 2008, a bomb exploded on a Friday evening near a mosque in the town of Malegaon, killing six people. One month later, the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) in Maharashtra said a group of Hindu right-wing radicals was to blame. Lt Col Purohit, who was posted in Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, and was undergoing an Arabic Language course, was accused and arrested.

The Army, without conducting an immediate court of inquiry, handed him over to the ATS. Later, it did order a court of inquiry but did not allow Lt Col Purohit to cross-examine witnesses.

More than 50 army personnel have testified so far that the Army may have wrongly handed over Lt Col Purohit to the ATS without conducting its own investigation.

-via Daily Bhaskar

Colonel and the labyrinth

Syed Nazakat.

After two years of investigation and several arrests, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has concluded that the Samjhauta Express attack in 2007 was the result of a well-thought out plan hatched at least two years before and the four terrorists who planted the bombs on the train belonged to the group Abhinav Bharat. It had allegedly carried out bomb blasts in other parts of the country, too. The bomb blast on the Indo-Pak transborder train killed 68 passengers, mostly Pakistani civilians.

The NIA’s investigation becomes crucial as it confirms that a serving officer and some retired army officers were associated with the right-wing Abhinav Bharat, and that they attended its meetings regularly in which the youth was motivated to take up arms against ‘Islamist terrorism’. “It [Samjhauta attack] was part of a larger conspiracy,” said an NIA officer. “We are establishing the strength of Abhinav Bharat. There is enough evidence with us to prosecute the culprits.” The officer said the agency would submit its supplementary, and perhaps the final, charge-sheet soon.

While the NIA may have successfully cracked the Samjhauta case, it is yet to nail Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, the first Army officer to be arrested on charge of terrorism. Purohit, a Military Intelligence officer, was arrested in 2008 on charges of conspiracy in the Malegaon terrorist attack. According to Maharashtra’s Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), while Sadhvi Pragya Singh—another member of Abhinav Bharat—arranged men to plant the explosives, Purohit provided the explosives.

Purohit, however, has told the Army’s Court of Inquiry (CoI) that he had penetrated Abhinav Bharat to gain intelligence and that he had kept his bosses in the loop. He claimed that he was tortured and forced to confess his role in different terrorist activities. The NIA may find it tough to prove his involvement, because evidence against Purohit was collected by Maharashtra ATS and listed in its charge-sheet. This is unlikely to hold water particularly after many senior officers deposed in favour of Purohit in the CoI. Though he is accused of stealing 60 kg RDX from the Army depot in Jammu and Kashmir and passing it on to the bomb planters, the trail is yet to be established.

But, for the first time, the NIA identified the four men who planted bombs on the train. Of these Kamal Chauhan and Lokesh Sharma have been arrested while Ramji alias Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange are still at large. The NIA has announced a reward of 010 lakh for information on Ramji and Sandeep. According to an NIA officer, the accused were members of Abhinav Bharat and had received arms training at Karni Singh shooting range in Faridabad (Haryana) and Bagli in Dewas (Madhya Pradesh). The bomb planters were divided into two teams, two members each. Each member planted one IED. All four belong to Madhya Pradesh and were allegedly associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Kamal Chauhan, who was arrested on February 14, 2012, from Noida, provided details about the sequence of events and the role played by each person in the attack. His confession also unravelled how the group led by Swami Aseemanand plotted the attacks on Samjhauta and how the men were trained to carry out the attacks and how the outfit’s top operative, Sunil Joshi, was killed to destroy evidence. Aseemanand, arrested in 2010, admitted that the terrorist attacks in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008, in Ajmer Sharif in 2007 and Mecca Masjid in 2007 were carried out by them as they wanted to answer every terror act committed by Muslims with a ‘bomb for bomb’ policy. Later, he retracted his statement. That had complicated the NIA’s case. Added to it, the agency failed to file any charge-sheet against Lokesh Sharma in the stipulated time, allowing him to walk out on bail.

-via The Week

Why Lt Col Purohit’s case may have the Army searching for cover

Nitin Gokhale & Shamik Ghosh.

After a court of inquiry conducted in Mumbai, the Army has to decide whether there are enough grounds to dismiss Lt Col Prasad Purohit, who is in Taloja Jail, near Navi Mumbai. For the Army, the case is full of grey areas. Lt Col Purohit has been charged by Maharashtra’s Anti-Terror Squad of belonging to extreme right-wing extremist group Abhinav Bharat, which allegedly planted a bomb in the state’s Malegaon town in September 2008, killing six people.

Lt Col Purohit has always claimed that he had kept his bosses in the loop on every intelligence operation that he undertook including infiltrating into the fledgling Abhinav Bharat.

Lt Col Purohit says he infiltrated the group because that was his job as a Military Intelligence officer.

The Army says that’s not correct. But there are documents that show that Lt Col Purohit had earlier shared close ties with the Students Islamic Movement of India or SIMI, banned in 2001 as a terrorist organisation. An Annual Confidential Report (ACR)in NDTV’s possession has a senior officer praising Lt Col Purohit. “The officer has infiltrated the SIMI and other underground outfits in the region through his capabilities and go-getter attitude.

Dependable, Lt Col Purohit is a good team player.” A year later, a similar report said, “…with the basic knowledge of Arabic language and Islamic culture, he provided valuable int (intelligence) on Tabliq-e-Jamat and MFO (Muslim Fundamentalist Organisations) which was well appreciated by the environment….”

The Army has, however, refused to respond to NDTV’s queries on these reports, raising this question: Does the Army go beyond its mandate in keeping under-cover tabs on organisations even in non-combat areas?

Lt. Gen RK Sawhney (retd), a former DG of Military Intelligence puts it in perspective: “Basically only in insurgency areas, Army goes ahead and does this job. There are not very clear cut rules .. there are grey areas when deployed in peace areas but if a piece of intelligence is available there are ways to share it and coordinate with other agencies.”

The Army will have to explain that while Lt Col Purohit’s infiltration of organisations like SIMI was officially recognised, how did his activities in fraternising with right-wing groups go unnoticed?

-via NDTV

‘He made explosive allegations against senior Army officers’

Nilim Dutta.

I didn’t know who he was or what he did, not an unus – ual state of affairs for a Twitter acquaintance. He must’ve learnt who I was as I tweeted with my name as handle and my Twitter bio is linked to my blog. I must have followed him back in Twitter out of politeness. That must have pleased him because now he could send me direct messages (DMs). He began to tell me about himself, mos tly in DMs. He said he was a Colonel, posted in Bengaluru and had sought voluntary retirement; that he was a decorated soldier, having won two gallantry medals.

My instincts made me wary of him. Then began a series of explosive allegations against senior army comma n ders who have retired, a clever concoction of facts and un-provable innuendos, which poured into my Twitter inbox as DMs on 16 August 2011. He then offered me his cellphone number and asked me to call him. I did not. I began to save every scrap of his DM as e-mail notifications.

Three days later, on 19 August 2011 he sent me a DM, asking me if I could do him a small favour. He sought my number to call me. I gave it to him. He called me instantly, explaining that the mother-in-law of a serving officer, another colonel who was his friend and batch-mate, had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised. His friend couldn’t be reached because he was posted in Gurez, Kashmir and that Rs 4 lakh was required urgently. He said she wasn’t entitled to be treated in the Bengaluru command hospital and had to be admitted in the Manipal Hospital. He had given about Rs 2 lakh from his own account and raised some more among friends, but still needed Rs 20,000.

I asked him to text me where the money was to be transferred. I was taken aback a little when he texted me his own State Bank of India account number instead of Manipal Hospital’s. It was 2.10 pm on the afternoon of 19 August, a Friday. I told him it couldn’t be done instantly because I’d first have to add his account to my beneficiary list. He said he’ll give a cheque to the hospital and wait for transfer. I told him not to expect it before Monday.

I now had his name and bank account details. I discreetly inquired whether about 2 lakh was withdrawn from this account that day. No such withdrawal had been made, the account never had so much money. He was lying. I did not say anything. He frantically called me on 21 August saying since the money I was supposed to transfer did not reach, the cheque had bounced. He had the gall to accuse me of tarnishing the ‘honour’ of a decorated officer.

A few days later, I taunted him on Twitter, saying I was going to expose him. He frantically called me back, pleaded that I was under some wrong impression. I asked him about his gallantry medals. He claimed an Ashok Chakra and a Sena medal. I shot back, “Are you still alive? Or were those posthumous?” Of course his name never figured on any commendation list. All the communications that I had saved would now be evidence. I quietly passed the information on to the relevant authorities.

On 31 December 2011 @casperghost7, also known as self-styled Col Samir Shamsher Rana was arrested in the restricted area of the old Bengaluru Airport, thanks to the vigilance of the HAL airport security staff.

Investigations have revealed that he indeed served in the army earlier but was court martialled and served a sentence for embezzlement. He is also allegedly married to a woman who was earlier married to Mohammed Ibrahim, of the banned terror outfit Deendar Anjuman and had been convicted in the sensational Karnataka church blasts. Investigations are on and the Bengaluru Police will probe deeper.

-via Tehelka

Jawan booked for planting IED

Police have booked a Territorial Army jawan and are awaiting response from the concerned authorities for his formal arrest in connection with a case of planting an IED here on September 23.

“A case has been registered against the jawan and we are awaiting response from Army for his arrest in it,” Jammu Senior Superintendent of Police Anand Jain said.

During investigation it was found that TA jawan Bishan Dass was involved in planting of the IED, without trigger mechanism, and should be further interrogated, he said.

Warrants have been issued by the court of sub judge for the arrest of the jawan after police filed a case diary before it pleading for the jawan’s custody.

An IED containing capacitors, small quantity of explosive and wires, without ignition unit, was planted by some persons on Satwari-Belicharan road in Jammu city behind the boundary wall of a defence establishment on September 23.

It was later recovered by the police, who claimed that it was fake.

-via Zee News

Related Articles:

• Military Intelligence officials under investigation in IED recovery case

Who is Shrikant Purohit?

Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit

NDTV Correspondent.

His arrest two-and-a-half years ago shook the foundation of what has been one of India’s most secular institutions, the Indian Army. Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit was accused of conspiracy for terror and murder, the first time that an Armyman had been booked for a terror act.

An aberration, said Armymen. Others shook their heads in disbelief.

Neighbours said they knew Prasad Purohit as a soft-spoken man and superiors in the Army remembered a bright, hard-working recruit. In all conversations with people who knew or had interacted with Purohit, a common picture drawn was of a zealous young man with a marked patriotic fervor.

Purohit belongs to a cultured, middle-class Maharashtrian Brahmin family. The son of a bank officer, he was born in Pune and got his education from the Abhinav Vidyalaya and Garware College there.

In 1994, Purohit was commissioned into the Maratha Light Infantry after passing out of the Officers’ Training Academy at Chennai. He was serving in Jammu and Kashmir when he fell ill and was medically downgraded. At that time he was shifted to Military Intelligence.

Between 2002 and early 2005, Purohit was part of very important counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir as part of MI-25 or the Intelligence Field Security Unit. The MI-25 is tasked with looking at the enemy along the border.

It was when Purohit was posted at Deolali near Nashik in Maharashtra as a liaison unit officer when he allegedly came in contact with Ramesh Upadhyay, a retired Major. Upadhyay allegedly set up Abhinav Bharat, an extreme Hindutva group, that Purohit reportedly became a part of. Upadhyay too is in jail in the Malegaon case.

Purohit was later accused of having stolen 60 kg of RDX from the Army – some of which was allegedly used in the Malegaon blast. He was also charged with funding and training Hindu extremist groups like Abhinav Bharat, which was believed to have planned and executed the Malegaon blast.

The Lt Col was stationed at the Army Education Corps Training College and Centre at Panchmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he was learning Arabic, when the police allegedly found and decoded some SMSes that he sent out to Upadyay after the Malegaon blasts. He was interrogated, arrested in the Malegaon blast case in late 2008 and has been in jail since.

Six people died and many were injured in the September 29, 2008 in the communally-sensitive textile town of Malegaon. A bomb placed on a motorcycle exploded after Friday prayers had ended at a mosque.

Soon after Purohit’s arrest, the Army ordered a Court of Inquiry that later recommended Purohit’s dismissal from service. Last year, Purohit filed an appeal in the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) seeking that the Court of Inquiry proceedings be quashed as the Army Act 180 had been violated. Purohit contended that some key witnesses had been examined without him being present or being given the chance of cross-examining them.

He says he has been victimized by military intelligence officials. In a statutory complaint sent to the then Army chief in 2009, Purohit had claimed that he was never involved with Hindu extremists and that he was falsely implicated by a fellow officer, illegally detained and tortured.

Purohit has drawn the AFT’s attention to the fact that almost a fortnight before his arrest, he had alerted Military Intelligence about the activities of Hindu radicals in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, on the basis of information he had gathered during his tenure Deolali.

-via NDTV

Army asked to reprobe against Colonel Purohit

Colonel Prasad Purohit

Gautam Datt.

The Army has been asked to conduct a fresh Court of Inquiry (CoI) against Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, one of the main accused in the Malegaon blast case, by the armed forces tribunal as it found irregularities in the initial probe.

The first CoI, completed in September last year, had recommended dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Purohit from service for his alleged involvement in the terror plot.

Army had presented facts related to the CoI before the tribunal after which it was asked to reconvene the probe.

Justice S S Kulshreshtha of armed forces tribunal held that Army had examined some witnesses in absence of Purohit in violation of Army Rule 180 as the accused could not cross examine them.

“The Court of Inquiry suffers from the vice of irregularity…. It would be just and proper to direct the Army to further convene the CoI from the state when the statements of the witnesses were recorded on September 1, 2010 in absence of Purohit,” said the tribunal.

The findings of CoI were challenged by Purohit who cited violation of Army rule 180.

He had even complained that he was given extreme inhuman treatment and also named a Colonel R K Srivastava as the officer who subjected him to torture.

Purohit has been named as one of the main accused in the Malegaon case chargesheet along with swami Dayanand Pandey, sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and another Army officer major Ramesh Upadhyay.

They have been booked under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

The CoI had found merit in the allegations on the basis of which his termination was recommended. T he Army had forwarded the recommendation to its legal branch for opinion.

Purohit, posted in Nasik, was alleged to be part of a group called Abhinav Bharat which carried out attack in Malegaon in 2006 killing seven persons. The CoI had also gone into Purohit’s links with other Army officers and whether they were aware about his activities.

-via Indian Express

‘RDX used in Malegaon blasts stolen from army’

Mateen Hafeez.

Residents of Malegaon said the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team reinvestigating the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts told them that their probe revealed that the RDX used in the blasts was stolen from the army. The army had earlier denied this charge.

On September 8, 2006, four RDX bombs planted on bicycles near a mosque at a cemetery in Mushawerat Chowk exploded, killing 31 people and injuring 297 others. Seven youths from Malegaon were arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on charges of designing and engineering the blasts. In December 2006 the probe was handed over to the CBI. In 2011, a special CBI team began reinvestigating the case after a member of Abhinav Bharat Swami Aseemanand’s confession claimed that the right-wing group was responsible for the Malegaon blast. The special CBI team conducted five meetings with the members of Organisations of All Muslim Sects (OAMS) in Malegaon and interacted with them.

“The CBI told us that the RDX used in the blasts was stolen from the army,” said a member of OAMS who was called by the CBI during the probe recently.

A CBI team member, M V Laad, said, “I neither know anything about it nor do I want to talk on this issue”. Another officer from the special CBI team said, “I have been to Malegaon but I cannot utter a single word.”

The prosecution, after arresting Lt Col Prasad Purohit in connection with the September 29, 2008 Malegaon blast in which seven people were killed, had told a court that the RDX used in the bomb was stolen from the army.

The CBI team had been asking the residents of Malegaon to assist them in collecting documentary evidence in the 2006 blast case. “They asked why only Malegaon was targeted when there are several other Muslim pockets as well in the state,” said advocate Irfana Hamdanai, who has been legally assisting the Malegaon youth, who have been arrested in the blast cases. “We have submitted documents to the CBI about a reconversion programme conducted by Aseemanand and associates between February 11 and 13, 2006,” said senior advocate S S Shaikh, also a member of OAMS.

Prior to the programme, Aseemanand’s group allegedly distributed pamphlets, calling for an end to conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity. Copies of the pamphlets have been submitted to the National Minority Commission, said residents. Copies were also given to the CBI three days ago. Soon after the Jamiatul Ulema, a socio-religious body, in Malegaon came to know about the reconversion plan, it alerted all the Muslims in around 150 villages near Malegaon and thwarted Aseemanand and his associates’ plan for a mass reconversion,” said advocate S S Shaikh, also a member of OAMS.

Aseemanand in his confession said that they targeted Malegaon since 80% of its population was Muslim.

“We want our boys to be released. We also want to show that the residents of Malegaon have nothing to do with the blasts but the Aseemanand group is responsible for it,” said advocate Nihal Ansari.

-via The Times of India

Colonel Purohit’s letter indicts Indresh, Sadhvi Pragya

Colonel Prasad Purohit

Aariz Chandra.

A letter written by Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Srikant Purohit to the army intelligence has revealed the involvement of senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur in the attack. The question is if Purohit was blowing the whistle on the right-wing extremism or it was a ploy to cover his own tracks.

“The blasts which took place in Gujarat and Malegaon are on the same day and same time using the same technique. I had learnt that it is Mr Indresh Kumar of the RSS, who is instrumental in carrying out these actions.”

This damning disclosure has been made by LT Col Purohit before the court of enquiry initiated against him after his arrest in the Malegaon blast case of 2008. Interestingly, Purohit had shared inputs with his seniors before his arrest in the case.

The hand-written letter dated October 15, 2008 submitted by Lt Col Purohit before the court of enquiry has been accessed by Headlines Today.

In his letter, the Lt Colonel not only accuses Indresh Kumar as conspirator in the Malegaon and Ajmer blasts, he also talks about Sadhvi Pragya’s alleged role in these blasts.

Another person is a lady Pradnya Singh, originally resident of Murana or Bhind.

The vehicle used in the Malegaon bomb blast was assembled from three different vehicles, one of which was ‘Bajaj Freedom’ registered in Pradnya Singh’s name.

It was utilized by Pracharak (Sunil) Joshi before he got killed and the vehicle’s registration is from Surat in Gujarat.

Lt Colonel Purohit’s letter was addressed to Major Bhagirath Dey, who at the time was posted as Intelligence officer at Jabalpur CCLU.

“I was undergoing a special Chinese refresher course at Panchmarhi Army Educational Corps Training college from July 14, 2008 to Oct 4, 2008. During that course I met Lt Col Purohit,” says Dey.

“Around the second week of October 2008, I received a call from Lt Col Purohit. He had some information which he said he could not share on telephone. On October 15, 2008 I sent Havaldar to meet Lt Col Purohit and he came back with a letter. The letter contained some vague information regarding one RSS leader Indresh Kumar and a lady called Pragya Singh,” Dey added.

RSS big wig Indresh Kumar’s name has already figured in the chargesheet filed by the Rajasthan ATS in the Ajmer blast case. Not just this, Indresh has also been questioned in connection with the Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad. Will the anti-terrorism squad bother to question him on this damning disclosure by Col Purohit?

-via India Today