High Court acquits man of LeT charges

A Division Bench of Justices Gita Mittal and S Ravindra Bhat upheld the trial court order absolving Irshad Ahmad Malik from the charges of waging war against country and possessing deadly weapons, besides some hawala money, for the purpose.

Malik was apprehended by the Delhi police’s special cell on March 27, 2004, following a tip-off. He was allegedly nabbed from a guesthouse here with a pistol and Rs 2.75 lakh hawala money.

In his disclosure statement, he allegedly told the police that he was a member of the LeT and had concealed one AK47 rifle, a fidayeen belt with two hand grenades, a wireless set and four magazines (AK47 rifle) at a place near river Tavi in  Jammu. A police party went to Jammu but could not recover anything.

Ammunition recovered
A few days after, Malik made another statement before the police saying he had hidden AK rifles and two magazines near Himayun tomb here. The police team went there and recovered AK 56 rifle and two loaded magazines containing 30 live cartridges.

The court, however, did not find merit in the police version after going through the factual matrix saying the investigating agency kept on changing the stand as per “convenience” to implicate Malik in a serious case.

“It is very interesting to note that the respondent (Malik) would not disclose the name and address of the source of the amount of Rs 2.75 lakh, which was collected by him from Chandni Chowk (here) but would disclose that he had concealed an AK47 rifle and other ammunitions at the bank of river Tavi in Jammu.

“It is quite strange that according to the prosecution version this disclosure statement was retracted by the respondent (Malik) who allegedly changed stand and gave a second disclosure statement that the AK rifle and ammunition was transported to Delhi in January 2004. It may be noticed that AK47 rifle as mentioned in the first disclosure statement became a simple AK rifle and ultimately there was recovery of an AK56 rifle.

The investigating agency thus shifted the stand of respondent (Malik) as per its own convenience to involve him in a serious case like waging war against the Government of India,” the court said.

The Bench dismissed the appeal filed by the police saying the trial court “rightly disbelieved” story about the recovery of AK56 and other ammunition in pursuance of Malik’s second disclosure statement and acquitted him.