IN THE Antilia terror scare and Mansukh Hiran alleged murder case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has submitted that it will not be able to supply the whole record of electronic evidence to the accused as it would cost Rs 40 lakh and over eight months to provide it. The agency has said that due to the voluminous record of electronic evidence collected in the case, it should be permitted to only provide the relevant record available. “.It will take about 258 days or more to copy and provide to all accused..It will cause irreparable loss and damage to prosecution to provide such a huge, voluminous record with a cost of Rs 40 lakh," the NIA has said in its plea before the court filed recently. Before trial begins, the prosecution agency is expected to provide copies of all the evidence collected by it to all the accused. In this case, the NIA's probe includes over 1000 TB (terabyte) of electronic data. This includes a voluminous record of CCTV footage seized from across the city starting from days prior to the planting of explosives in an SUV parked near Antilia, the residence of industrialist Mukesh Ambani on February 25 last year, to the murder of Thane-resident Hiran, linked to the SUV, on March 4. The NIA has seized CCTV data from cameras installed near Antilia, the office of the Commissioner of police in South Mumbai, main accused Sachin Waze's residence in Thane, and railway stations and highways where the accused are alleged to have travelled during the conspiracy. The data also includes Call Data Records, running into lakhs of pages, of the phones used by the accused. The special court has asked the accused to file a reply to the plea. The accused include Waze, retired ACP Pradeep Sharma, and two dismissed cops, Sunil Mane and Riyaz Kazi. The NIA filed a chargesheet in the case last year including under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
