Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

`Witnesses lacked credibility'

Staff Reporter

Coimbatoreserialblasts

Coimbatore: Defence counsel in the Coimbatore serial blasts case said the witnesses presented by the prosecution to prove despatch of bag bombs from Azad Nagar and their planting at a shopping complex in Sundarapuram and along the Kurichi tank on February 14 lacked credibility.

Defence counsel R. Gopalan placed his arguments before the judge of the Special Court for Bomb Blast Cases K. Uthirapathy. T. Balasundaram and T.A. Selvaraj represented the prosecution.

The defence counsel said the prosecution had two eyewitnesses who said they had seen one of the undertrials handing over bag bombs on February 14, 1998 to four other undertrials.

The eyewitnesses said they had gone to Azad Nagar to collect Rs 100 which they had loaned to the undertrial.

The eyewitnesses claimed that they knew the undertrial as an auto driver. But the prosecution had failed to prove that the undertrial was an auto driver.

Similarly, the two eyewitnesses in respect of the planting of bombs in a shopping complex also lacked credibility since the eyewitnesses were not able to describe any other situation other than the facts of the case.

The eyewitnesses claiming to have no knowledge about a mill labour union meeting near the scene of occurrence or the presence of police personnel near the shopping complex also raised questions on their credibility.

As per the records of the prosecution two undertrials were present at Azad Nagar for taking the bombs.

Whereas the prosecution records in respect of another case also spoke of the presence of the same undertrials at Saramedu on the same day at same time, Mr. Gopalan said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Agri Science Congress at TNAU
Security strengthened
`Witnesses lacked credibility'
Census finds birds healthy
Newsletter released
Around the City
In Coimbatore Today

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu