Check if ISIS oath written by accused: HC to forensic

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, handwriting experts and the central government to ascertain whether or not the oath of allegiance to the ISIS (chief) in Arabic is that of arrested accused Raees Siddiqui.

The HC was hearing an appeal filed by Mr Siddiqui, arrested along with Naser Yafai and three others from Parbhani for planning unlawful activities in Aurangabad. Mr Siddiqui filed an appeal challenging the trial court order rejecting his bail plea.

A division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice A.M. Badar was hearing the appeal filed by Mr Siddiqui, challenging the NIA court order rejecting his bail plea. Mr Siddiqui’s lawyers, Mubin Solkar and Abdul Raheem Bukhari, contended before the HC that there was no evidence on record to show involvement of the applicant in the present case.

They argued that the police was suspecting that Mr Siddiqui wrote the chit, which was recovered during the probe. The chit was in Arabic and upon translation, it was found to be an oath of allegiance to the ISIS.

According to the lawyers, the applicant’s name was not there on the chit. They argued that the name mentioned on the chit meant that its author was the father of a girl (name withheld) and that the girl’s name turned out to be that of Mr Siddiqui’s daughter and hence, the ATS was claiming that Mr Siddiqui had written this oath.

However, the report of the handwriting expert for this chit was still awaited and it had not been proved that the author of the oath was Mr Siddiqui. Hence, the court directed the director, government examiner of questioned documents, Central Forensic Science Laboratory and other relevant government and police departments to furnish the report of the handwriting expert before the next date of hearing and deferred hearing till July 4, 2019.