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Demand to release “terror suspects”

JAIPUR: Muslim groups in Rajasthan have expressed concern over the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the State police trying to pinpoint the blame for the May 13 serial blasts in Jaipur on Islamist outfits and demanded an immediate release of all “terror suspects” detained by the police without any evidence of their complicity in the crime.

A delegation of the Rajasthan Muslim Forum, accompanied by three MLAs and some civil rights activists, met the SIT chief and Inspector-General of Police Laxman Meena here earlier this week to apprise him of “panic and resentment” prevailing in the Muslim community with the imams of mosques, maulvis and madrasa teachers being picked up for interrogation.

The delegation pointed out that SIT had so far detained, questioned, summoned to police stations and approached at home about 500 persons across the State in connection with its probe into the blasts that claimed 66 lives. “Except one or two, all the suspects belong to the Muslim community,” pointed out Jamat-e-Islami Hind State president Mohammed Salim.

Congress MLAs Brij Kishore Sharma, Aimaduddin Ahmed Khan and M. Mahir Azad, Rajasthan Sadbhav Manch convenor Sawai Singh, and People’s Union for Civil Liberties State unit president Prem Krishna Sharma and general secretary Kavita Srivastava accompanied the delegation, which was led by Muslim Forum convenor Qari Moinuddin.

The delegation members wondered why the SIT investigators were not looking into the possibility of non-Muslim extremist outfits or foreign intelligence agencies having masterminded the bombings.

Mr. Prem Krishna Sharma, who is also a Supreme Court lawyer, took exception to SIT detaining the suspects for several days without producing them in court, even though the police were not empowered under the Code of Criminal Procedure to detain anyone for more than 24 hours for investigation without a judicial magistrate’s special orders.

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