Police did not kill arms haul case accused: SIT

Mumbai: A special investigating team (SIT) on Wednesday informed the Bombay high court that suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) operative and 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case accused Abdul Naeem Shaikh had escaped from the custody of the West Bengal policemen who were bringing him to Mumbai to produce him before a court, and it did not find any substance in the allegation that he was murdered.

The Bombay high court in September had directed that an SIT be set up under the joint director of the the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Chhattisgarh, director general of police, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal and Maharashtra ATS chiefs to find out the truth about the allegations made by Shaikh’s mother, Qamar Nasreen (60), in her habeas corpus petition that her son could have been killed in custody by the police and it had cooked up the story of his escape.

Advocate Hiten Venegaonkar, appearing for the SIT, submitted the panel’s report before the division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi. He told the court that the SIT in its report has said that the accused is alive and had absconded in connivance with the West Bengal police. He also said that an offence has been registered against the police officers concerned and further investigation into the incident is on.

According to the Chhattisgarh police, Shaikh had, in 2014, escaped its custody when he was being brought to Mumbai to be produced before a special MCOCA court in connection with the arms haul case.

The police has claimed that a team of West Bengal police was escorting Shaikh under a production warrant via Howrah-Mumbai Superfast mail. On August 24, 2014, when the said train was passing through Kharsiya and Shakti railway station in Chhattisgarh’s district Raigarh early in the morning, Shaikh escaped from the train.

However, Qamar Nasreen, in her petition, refuted these allegations and approached the court, saying she strongly suspected that either her son had been killed in a police encounter or had been kept in illegal custody so that he could be implicated in some other false case.