Judge raps CST cops: Why didn’t you follow terrorists?

Tahaliyani was visibly irritated by the replies Keratkar gave Kasab’s lawyer,Abbas Kazmi.

“Who told you about the alleged terrorists going out of the station as passengers? Shouldn’t you have followed the terrorists? But you believed the words of a passenger and some staff of yours that the terrorists had gone far away. You searched for them on the platform but did not follow them outside. How could you have done this? You’re a police officer,” the judge said.

“I will deal with this jurisdiction issue separately at length in my judgment.”

Keratkar had told the court that he and a colleague had fired over 40 rounds near the main gate of the local line hall but no bullet had hit the two terrorists.

“Other policemen and I saw the terrorists walking towards the foot over-bridge on platform number 1. They then went missing. So we started looking for them on the platforms to ensure that they had left nothing behind,” Keratkar said.

Kazmi asked if a CCTV camera was installed on platform no 7 of the local line. Keratkar said none had been installed then though there is one now. Tahaliyani said,“Your reply should have been that since the frequency of passengers is very low on the platform,the railway authorities had not installed any camera there,but that now after the attack they have installed one.”

The court on Thursday also screened the CCTV footage of the attack,recorded by the RPF. It showed the movements of Kasab and Khan but the quality was poor and their faces were not clear. The prosecution said the cameras installed in the main line hall could not record images as they had been under maintenance. The images showed the two gunmen moving about and one of them firing at policemen from a distance.

Kasab sat in the dock,silent,showing no reaction to the images on the screen.