The Bombay high court today found relevance in the issues raised by former inspector general of police SM Mushrif in his book related to the 26/11 attacks and sought a reply from the state within a week.
The Bombay high court today found relevance in the issues raised by former inspector general of police SM Mushrif in his book related to the 26/11 attacks and sought a reply from the state within a week.
One of the questions raised by Mushrif in Who Killed Karkare is why the Intelligence Bureau which allegedly had some inputs on attack as early as November 19, 2008, did not pass them on to the Maharashtra police.
A division bench of Justice BH Marlapalle and Justice UD Salvi said that this and other issues raised by Mushrif were "relevant" and added that "We believe people are entitled to know (the truth)".
The book argues that there was a conspiracy behind ATS chief Hemant Karkare's death in the ambush near Cama Hospital on November 26. Former MLA from Bihar, Ramakant Yadav, had filed a PIL seeking probe into this angle.
The high court today said that it would not "go into conclusions drawn by Mushrif" but some issues raised by him must be answered.
Apart from IB's alleged failure to pass on information, Mushrif alleges, on the basis of newspaper reports, that IB's intelligence contained 35 suspicious cell numbers, and three of those SIM cards were purchased from Maharashtra.
Two of the SIM owners were allegedly from Satara and were questioned by police. "What came of interrogation of owners of those three SIM cards," the judges asked.
Mushrif also alleges that though there were 284 telephone conversations during the terror attacks between terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan, there was no evidence of conversation between handlers and terrorists who attacked CST (Ajmal Kasab and Abu Ismail).
Further, the book cites IAS officer Bhushan Gagrani, who said that his staff-member heard one of the terrorists at Cama Hospital "speaking in Marathi".
"If he was speaking Marathi, then he could not have come from Pakistan," the judges remarked, referring to it.
The CCTV cameras at CST were not working during the attack, the book says.
Later, when RD Pradhan committee which probed the attacks sought information from IB, it was denied, it says.
"We want to know whether the Maharashtra police investigated this deep-rooted conspiracy theory," judges said.
Mushrif's book, as well as the petitioner, allege that in fact it was not Kasab and Ismail but some Hindu extremists and "some elements in IB" who were responsible for Karkare's death.
The court, however, said that it did not agree with everything written by Mushrif (who was present in the court following the high court's direction at the last hearing), but as a citizen, he was free to air his views.
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