Why are terrorists held on R-Day eve?

Aren’t these just pre-Republic Day or pre-Independence Day stunts? The police say no. DCP (Crime) Karnal Singh says: “There have been instances where people have tried to create trouble on national holidays, like in Jaipur and Srinagar. We are not under pressure to make arrests but since there are people whodo create trouble, we have to catch them.” He points out that in Delhi itself there were 22 blasts in 1997 and four in 1998. “The number came down because of the arrests we made. If we didn’t arrest people then there would be trouble.”

This year’s major pre-Republic Day arrest has been that of Bangladeshi national Sayed Abu Nasir. With this, on January 19 the police claimed to have foiled an ISI-backed terrorist group’s plan to bomb the US consulates in Chennai, Calcutta and several places in the city. The police say that Nasir was arrested at the New Delhi Railway Station last week and booked for waging a war against the country as well as violating the Explosive Substances Act. The police claimed to have recovered 2 kg of RDX and five detonators from him.

However, a January 20 report in the Washington Post states that Nasir has been in custody in India since December 1998. Senior officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs today said that police officials were summoned to give an explanation.Karnal Singh denies this. “We go to MHA very often on routine work. I had gone there today in connection with another case.” He also reiterated the fact that Nasir was arrested on January 7 and not in December.

Meanwhile, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R K Gauba today allowed Nasir’s transit remand, following an application moved by the Siliguri police. “He will be in judicial remand until we can get his train reservation. Then he will be transferred to police remand,” said the DCP.

Whatever the outcome of this case, defence lawyers are sure about one thing: The Delhi police make major arrests especially before January 26 and August 15 “in their attempt to assure the public that they are doing their job”. Says a lawyer: “In the past few years people have anticipated trouble on these two days and the police like to show that they have saved the day. But most of these cases eventually end up in acquittals.”

On August 12 last year, the Special Cell arrested three men — two supposed Pakistanis –and claimed to have busted a gun-running and hawala racket allegedly run by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The police claimed to have recovered 11 pistols, 199 cartridges and 15 spare magazines from them.

On January 22 last year the Central Bureau of Investigation released a computer portrait of a suspect in the January-9 bomb blast that took place a mere 150 metres from Police Headquarters and in which 56 people were injured.

In January 1998, seven police officers were given out-of-turn promotions for having “solved” some bomb blast cases. The lack of seriousness in the investigation was highlighted when a Delhi court noted that the police’s claim of one of these cases being solved was a “mere hoax”.

On September 26, 1995 there was a bomb blast near the railway station gate at Samaipur Badli. Discharging the two accused — Mahinder Pal Singh and Hardip Singh — in 1997, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Rekha Sharma said, “… the accused have been made to suffer incarceration without any evidence”against them.

Making a scathing attack on the police, the judge said that it was elementary for any officer to know that a confession made by an accused is “inadmissible” in evidence, as Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act forbids the use of such confessional statements in the trial. The judge said that the disclosure statement of the accused made in police custody could only serve as a lead toward the possible solution of the crime.

In January 1998, two accused in another bomb blast case — Sukhvinder Singh and Amarjeet Singh — were acquitted. They were arrested for their alleged involvement in bomb explosions at Azadpur Mandi and Lawrence Road in Keshavpuram in 1990. ASJ R C Yadhuvanshi said in his order that the offence was “certainly of great magnitude and deserved full concern” but pointed out that the prosecution had failed to prove their case in associating any of the accused with the crime.

A National Human Rights Commission annual report speaks about the substantive and proceduraldeficiencies in the criminal justice system: “The rate of acquittals, in particular heinous offences, is quite disturbing. It is almost 80 per cent.” Lawyers say that the acquittal rate will continue to be high if the police arrest the wrong people or conduct shoddy investigations.

Former Additional Solicitor General Dr A M Singhvi says that “lackadaisical investigation by ill-trained personnel — inefficient at the least and corrupt at the most — leaves glaring lacunae in the filing of chargesheets and the marshalling of witnesses and evidence. Hardened criminals thus escape just because a constable has erred.”

Recommending changes in the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law Commission mentioned that the prosecution should be an independent agency. A legal expert said: “That would be a beginning in trying to fix what ails our criminal justice system.”