Prosecution bases final argument on official accounts, forensic reports

Tamta then read depositions of top Uttar Pradesh government officials to establish that the truck entered 41st Vahini, PAC, Ghaziabad.

A Delhi court on Tuesday began the final arguments in the 27-year old Hashimpura massacre case. The special prosecutor, based on circumstantial and direct evidence, argued for prosecution of 16 Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) for allegedly killing about 42 Muslim men.

Special Prosecutor Satish Tamta began his argument on circumstantial evidence of kidnapping of the Muslim men from Meerut’s Hashimpura Mohalla.

He based his argument on testimonies of 14 witnesses to the incidents at Hindol Canal and Upper Ganga Canal Murad Nagar, where wounded persons and bodies were recovered.

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Tamta then read depositions of top Uttar Pradesh government officials to establish that the truck entered 41st Vahini, PAC, Ghaziabad.

He read out depositions of then District Magistrate of Ghaziabad Naseem Zaidi, Superintendent of Police V N Rai and four other officials.

“These are testimonies of very senior officials. Looking at the nature of duties assigned and the positions they held, it is not believable that they will make any false allegation,” he said.

The special prosecutor then corroborated the scientific evidence in the case. To establish the movement of the truck from Hashimpura mohalla to the PAC Ghaziabad, the prosecutor referred to the vehicle’s running register.

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The prosecutor also argued that reports of Central Forensic Science Laboratory and a ballistic expert show that a depression was found in the truck due to a “projectile”, which indicates shooting inside the vehicle.

Kaunain Sheriff M

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More

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