Israeli diplomat attack: Kazmi alleges custodial harassment

Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi, arrested for his alleged role in the February 13 Israeli diplomat's car bombing case, has moved a Delhi court alleging that he is being harassed in custody and is being forced to "confess a crime he never committed."

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav will hear his application tomorrow.
In the application filed through his counsel Vijay Aggarwal, it has been alleged that Kazmi is being "tortured mentally since the day of his arrest to confess the crime which he never committed and is being threatened by the officials of the investigating agency to implicate his family members if he does not bow down to their will."

Aggarwal said he was allowed by the court to meet Kazmi, who was sent to 20-day police custody on March 7, for half an hour daily and it was during one such legal interview that Kazmi informed him about his custodial harassment.

Kazmi, who claims to have been writing for an Iranian publication, was picked up by Special Cell of Delhi Police after a probe showed he had been in touch with a suspect, believed to have stuck the magnetic bomb on Israeli diplomat Tal Yehoshua's car on February 13.

Israeli diplomat Tal Yehoshua and an Indian driver of the embassy vehicle, was among four people injured in the blast.

In the application, Kazmi said he is being interrogated by "not only the officials of Delhi Police but also by officials of other investigating agencies as every day he sees a new face interrogating him."

Aggarwal also annexed media reports suggesting that officials of other investigating agencies, that is "Israeli officials (Israeli Intelligence Agencies, Mossad etc), are lined up to interrogate him."

Kazmi has also complained that the officials interrogating him are always in plain clothes due to which he cannot make out who of them are from the Delhi Police and who are from other agencies.

He said he is "not allowed to sleep which is causing great hardship" to him.
The counsel said Kazmi did not bring his custodial torture to court's notice earlier because of "fear for the lives of his family members but has been compelled to do so now since the conditions have worsened."

He has sought court's direction that no agency other than the Delhi Police should interrogate him and that he be quizzed within the confines of law laid down in the Constitution of Indian and the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.