Law and disorder: Recent judgments highlight poor police capabilities

Two verdicts two weeks apart concerning terrorist attacks in Maharashtra have highlighted the profound weaknesses in the basic capabilities of the police and investigative agencies. Both cases have vitiated the lives of the accused for almost two decades and precluded closure for the families of the victims. The sheer length of time involving the investigation and judicial process added to their distress. The serial accusations by the courts of missteps raise serious doubts about the fairness of the police service and security agencies.  In the case of the coordinated blasts on a Mumbai suburban train in July 2006, killing 187 people and injuring 824, the accused had spent 18 years in jail, during which one of them died of Covid-19. The Bombay High Court judgment came 10 years after a special court under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) had sentenced five of the accused to death and seven others to life imprisonment. The case, which was investigated by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, sought to establish links with Pakistan-linked terrorist organisations.

 

In the 671-page verdict, delivered on July 21, the high court found that the confessional statements of the accused were compromised by medical evidence, which suggested that they had been secured under torture. Most of the statements also appeared to be identical “cut and paste” jobs. The high court highlighted other practices that pointed to a troubling lack of due process and attempts to manipulate evidence. These range from a test-identification parade conducted by an officer who was not authorised to do so, witnesses who changed their statements under cross-examination by the high court, and evidence recovered from the scene violating chain-of-custody protocols (therefore vulnerable to tampering). The verdict has been stayed by the Supreme Court on grounds that some of the high court’s observations could impact pending cases under MCOCA. Though the accused, who were freed, are not required to return to prison, the uncertainty will place a heavy burden on them and the victims’ relatives.

 

In the case involving the Malegaon blast, a motorcycle filled with an improvised explosive device exploded in a Muslim-dominated area, killing six people and injuring over 100, during Ramzan in September 2008. Among the seven accused, the main ones were Pragya Singh Thakur, a politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party, and Prasad Purohit, a former Indian Army officer. On July 31, a special court under the National Investigation Agency acquitted all the accused on the grounds that the prosecution’s evidence was “riddled with inconsistencies”. In a 1,036-page judgment, the judge stated there was no proof that the motorcycle in question belonged to Ms Thakur (the serial number on the chassis was not completely recovered by forensics) or that Colonel Purohit sourced RDX from Kashmir to assemble a bomb at his residence. This case was investigated by the Anti-Terrorism Squad and involved such draconian laws as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and MCOCA. It is worth noting that this case went through several challenges before the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court on various issues before the charges were framed, and the trial began only in 2018. In this case, the accused were out on bail. This double saga of error and omission points to an urgent need for a more robust training programme for the police and investigative-agency personnel to shore up public confidence in the country’s law and order apparatus.