3 min readNew DelhiAug 29, 2014 02:10 AM IST
First published on: Aug 29, 2014 at 02:10 AM IST
Renowned Muslim scholar Moulana Mohamamd Abdul Kavi, who was picked up from Delhi Airport by the Gujarat Police in March, was granted bail by the Gujarat High Court Thursday. The Gujarat Police had arrested Kavi after digging out a ten-year-old case regarding an alleged conspiracy to take revenge for 2002 Gujarat riots. The Hyderabad-based scholar, a senior leader of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, was in jail in Gujarat for five months.
The case of alleged conspiracy to take “revenge” was among the first such cases registered in Gujarat after the 2002 riots. According to the Gujarat Police, a case had been filed on April 4, 2003. Subsequently, the Gujarat Police Crime Branch invoked POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) — a law that was repealed in 2004. The main chargesheet of this case was filed before Special POTA Court on September 10, 2003 wherein the Crime branch named 39 accused, who were arrested, along with 43 absconding accused.
Kavi’s name was not in this chargesheet. The Crime Branch, however, filed a series of chargesheets and Kavi’s name appeared as an alleged “absconding accused” in a second chargesheet filed on January 21, 2004. The Investigating Officer of this case was G L Singhal, the then ACP, Crime Branch, Ahmedabad city. Singhal was later arrested in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case and is currently out on bail.
Initially, the Gujarat Police had claimed “that the accused persons in collision with each other hatched a conspiracy during April, 2002 to April 3, 2003 to spread fear and horror with a view to take revenge…” The objective, Gujarat Police said, “was to incite Muslim youth to take up terrorist training in Pakistan to endanger integrity and security of the country”.
Gujarat Police later claimed that this case was “a larger conspiracy” and subsequently cases regarding the “murder of former home minister of Gujarat Haran Panday, conspiracy of murder of VHP leader Jagdish Tewari and also conspiracy for planting and blasting tiffin bombs in AMTS buses in Gujarat” were added to substantiate Gujarat Police’s theory.
According to the Gujarat Police, Kavi’s name appeared in two confessional statements and a statement of a secret witness. The accused who allegedly named Kavi are both out of prison while the secret witness has been declared hostile.
In the past 10 years, Kavi travelled across India and addressed a public gathering in Gujarat, besides going on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia four times. The Gujarat Police did not disclose why they did not arrest him during the time.
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