Bombay HC seeks accused’s report from Hyderabad FSL

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to get handwriting expert report from Hyderabad Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to determine if Raisuddin Siddique, who was arrested from Parbhani along with others for allegedly planning to carry out unlawful activities in Aurangabad, had written an oath of allegiance to the ISIS chief.

The court’s direction came after the NIA informed the court that it had received a handwriting analysis report from Pune FSL. The report was not produced before the court so the high court directed that both the reports be produced before it.

“It was shocking as well as surprising for us when the NIA informed the high court that the report from Pune FSL has been received because the agency itself had informed the court in the past that it has sent the samples of Siddique’s handwriting and the chit (written in Arabic) recovered from him to Hyderabad FSL for analysis,” said advocate Abdul Raheem Bukhari who is representing Siddique along with advocate Mubin Solkar before the HC. The lawyers have filed appeal challenging the order of NIA court rejecting Siddique’s bail plea.

The division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice A.M. Badar in its order passed on Thursday observed that on June 17, the court had directed the NIA to produce the report from the concerned FSL on July 4. However, on July 4, no report was submitted before the court and judges were informed that the investigating agency had received the report from the FSL, Pune, after examining the questioned documents.

“We are, therefore, directing the responde-nt/National Investigating Agency to produce the report from the FSL at Hyderabad, so also the reports received from such laboratory at Pune, along with an affidavit of the concerned officer by the next date,” said the bench.

The ATS has arrested three others from Parbh-ani — Naser Bin Yafai Chaus, Shahid Khan and Iqbal Ahmed Kabir Ahmed.According to the ATS, the accused had conducted reconnaissance of the ATS unit and police (rural) headquarters in Aurangabad to blow up the former.

Their target list also included police officers, especially a former ATS superintendent of police who was involved in the police encounter of an Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative in Maharashtra.