Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

`Box making charges, a concocted story'

Staff Reporter

Coimbatore: The defence counsel in the Coimbatore serial blasts case on Tuesday argued that there was no documentary evidence or witness to prove the manufacturing of moped side boxes used in the Coimbatore serial blasts. Defence counsel K. Vellingiri and P. Thirumalairajan submitted their arguments before the judge of the Special Court for Bomb Blast Cases, K. Uthirapathy. T. Balasundaram and T.A. Selvaraj represented the prosecution. More than 50 persons were killed and over 250 injured in the serial blasts of February 14, 1998. The charge of the prosecution was that the moped side boxes for fitting bombs were manufactured at the workshop of an undertrial Amanullah located at Al-Ameen colony and the address was missing in the case records, the defence said.

Door number

Even the door number in the records said to be that of the workshop was the door number of the undertrial's house. The defence contended that the prosecution version regarding the manufacturing of moped side boxes and accessories was a "concocted story".

Mr. Vellingiri pointed out that two persons were included as an accused in the remand report. But they subsequently turned as witnesses. They were important witnesses since they happened to be with the undertrial as assistants during the alleged commission of offence but the prosecution had failed to examine them, he said. According to the witnesses, the police at a railway station allegedly arrested the accused and a confession statement was also obtained from the undertrial in the police jeep itself.

Since, there were many railway stations in Coimbatore, the investigating agency had not specified the railway station from where the accused was arrested.

Also in the seizure records it was stated that the boxes were made of iron sheets where as they had been made of alloy or some other metal. Later the case records were altered changing the name of the metal. This only goes on to prove that the prosecution had cooked up a story. The defence questioned why the recovered metal sheets or the boxes were not sent for any scientific examination.

The defence pointed out that another Al-Umma activist, Jaffer Ali, was accused of being with the then Al-Umma leader S.A. Basha at his house in Chennai and no confession statement was obtained from the former in this respect.

Even for inspecting or searching the house of Basha, the police neither obtained permission from the court nor informed the court about it. Mr.Thirumalairajan argued that relevant witnesses were not examined in this case.

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