In an important development, the defence in 2003 Mulund bomb blast case called three witnesses to prove that the accused Dr Abdul Wahid Abdul Jabbar Shaikh had written in Urdu “galat hai” (it is incorrect) and that too in mirror image on his confessional statement to prove that he did not confess willingly and all the three witnesses confirmed that indeed the word “galat hai” is written with his signatures.
Advocate Khan Abdul Wahab told The Asian Age that Dr Shaikh had written “galat hai” in Urdu and in mirror image with all his signatures on the confessional statement and he had retracted his confession as soon as he was remanded to judicial custody and he had also informed the court about the same in 2003 only. However, the judge at that time had said, “parties to lead evidence on this,” which means that both prosecution and the defence were supposed to bring on record evidence to prove what Dr Shaikh is claiming is right or wrong.
According to advocate Khan, when the prosecution closed its case and examined all its witnesses the defence lawyers of a few of the accused decided to call some defence witnesses to prove their innocence.
He said that Dr Shaikh had signed eight times on different pages on his confession and with each signature he had put in the hidden message. “Since the message is written in Urdu we called Dr Muizza Kazi, a professor in Mumbai University’s Urdu department, Waqar Quadri from Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Academy and Mr Sarguru from Bombay high court’s translation department to depose before the trial court as defence witnesses and tell the court if “galat hai” is written with each and every signature or not.” Advocate Khan also said that all the three witnesses who are reliable experts in Urdu language confirmed before the Pota court that “galat hai” in mirror image was indeed clearly written with all the signatures.
Now, the special Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) court judge P.R. Deshmukh would decide in his judgment whether the defence was able to prove or not that the confessions was voluntary or not as the defence also cross-examined the witnesses and still its case is that the accused gave the confession willingly.
A few days ago, another defence witness the assistant chemical analyser S.S. Prabhavale told the court that his report never said that chemicals like RDX or TNT were recovered from the spot.
The prosecution case is that these two chemicals were used in blast and traces of these chemicals were also recovered from the house of accused.
According to advocate Khan this witness was also called to prove the contradiction in the prosecution’s case because after the blast, when the forensic team carried out the investigation, they had found that gunpowder was used for the blast, while the prosecution claimed that it was RDX and TNT. Only at a later stage did the prosecution claim that traces of TNT were found from one of the accused’s house. According to defence, this was done to connect the dots and link the accused with the blast.
The defence has claimed that testimony of Prabhavale has given a blow to the prosecution case. Prabhavale in his testimony to the court has said that in his report he has stated that no traces of RDX or TNT were found. Testimony of Prabhavale would continue after Diwali vacation.
On 13 March 2003, a powerful blast ripped apart the first class ladies’ compartment of a Karjat-bound local train at about 8.40 p.m. as it was pulling into the Mulund railway station in suburban Mumbai, killing 12 people and injuring nearly 70 others.
