No evidence on Pragya Singh Thakur’s claims of torture by ATS officials: Court

Other accused too had submitted that they had faced custodial violence at the hands of the accused. Lt Col Prasad Purohit had complained of ill-treatment and torture on his first appearance before the court in 2008 and was taken to the Military Hospital for a check-up.

Subsequently, however, he was sent to the ATS’ custody and in the next hearing did not speak of any complaints. The court has claimed that the medical papers did show some injuries but since he had told the court on the second hearing that he had no complaints, the complaint does not survive. The court said that the policemen had denied the suggestions and there was no other proof. On similar allegations by Sameer Kulkarni too, the court said that the allegations of ill-treatment were not proven but the allegations of illegal detention are taken into consideration. Kulkarni was brought from Bhopal on October 24, 2008 by ATS officials on a seven-seater private charter of India Bull Aviations Pvt Ltd, and was shown arrested on October 28, 2008.

The court also took into consideration testimonies of witnesses, some of whom claimed that they had been threatened and tortured, including being made to give false statements at gun-point with one claiming that he had suffered injury on his ear. One of the witnesses had also approached the State Human Rights Commission. While the prosecution had claimed that no complaint was made to authorities, the court noted that it could be due to future apprehensions and refused to consider these statements reliable. One witness had also claimed that the ATS officials were asking him to take names of Yogi Adityanath and others.

“It is necessary to mention that, non-lodging a report against ATS officers doesn’t mean that the testimony of witness requires to be disbelieved. Lot of times, a witness cannot collect the courage to lodge complaint immediately to police officer, considering the future apprehension of ill-treatment or consequences,” it said, adding that not everyone dares to lodge a complaint about police torture.

“It is also necessary to mention that, two prime investigating agencies were involved in this matter i.e. ATS and NIA. Both agencies conducted independent investigations and submitted separate charge-sheets upon completion thereof. However, the allegations of misconduct, torture, illegal detention have been levelled exclusively against ATS officers and no such accusations have been made against any officer of the NIA. Thus, pointing out towards the treatment given by ATS officers to the witnesses is self-sufficient which raises serious concern and credibility of evidence collected by ATS officers during the course of investigation,” the court said.

The court also said that there was no evidence on record to show that Purohit was permitted to join the specific organisation, Abhinav Bharat, as he had claimed that he was part of it as a military intelligence officer to raise sources.

“The collection of information by mixing up with other members of the trust to raise the sources are different aspect than actually joining the trust as a member of trustee,” the court said. It said his membership would not be illegal per say, but charges by ATS and NIA show that he was founder member of the organisation and had collected funds with control over its financial transactions. “Nothing material (has) come on record to show that all those allegations or charges were fake, baseless and all those acts are done by Accused 9 (Purohit) with the permission of his superior officer. Merely because the prosecution failed to prove the charges leveled against the accused in the absence of cogent evidence does not mean that all the charges were baseless or without foundation,” it said.