HC dismisses petition filed by Mumbai train blasts accused

The Bombay High Court today dismissed a petition filed by some of the accused in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case, who wanted to put in the witness box the senior police officers who recorded confessions of the alleged members of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen.
Petitioners Kamal Ansari and others also wanted to examine, before the trial court, the metropolitan magistrate before whom the confessions were certified as recorded without any coercion.
They also wanted to examine the superintendent of police of National Investigation Agency who filed a supplementary chargesheet in the 2006 Malegaon blast case.
According to the petition, the arrested members of IM, in their confessions, had admitted to have carried out the train blasts (contradicting police's claim that the petitioner and other co-accused carried out the blasts). The alleged IM members were arrested much later.

However, this part of the confession was never probed further by Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad which probed the train blasts, the petition claimed.
The July 11 train blasts accused wanted to examine the NIA officer to support their claim that the ATS had falsely implicated them.
According to the petition, the NIA, in its supplementary chargesheet in the 2006 Malegaon case, refuted ATS's investigation and observed that it had not found any material against the accused arrested by the ATS in that case.
However, the division bench of Justices V K Tahilramani and P N Deshmukh dismissed the petition today, saying it had no merit.