Youths allege torture, plead innocence
The National Investigating Agency (NIA) on Tuesday presented five witnesses before a special NIA court in Ranchi to register their statements in the Patna serial blast case. They were brought from Ormanjhi locality about 20 kms from the city.
The witnesses—Abu Rehan Ansari, Md Zikrullah, Md Faiz, Md Iftikharand Md Taukir—were reportedly brought from Chakla village under Ormanjhi Police Station of Ranchi were presented before SB Jha’s court and their statements were recorded.
However, sources said that a couple of youths turned hostile inside the courtroom and said that they were innocent. Outside the court the youths alleged that the NIA had forcefully brought them to court and had tortured them too.
The youths detained for interrogation on the tip off of terror suspect Muzibullah said that the NIA had forced them to come to the court and harassed them so much that the youths across the village were in a State of shock.
A Human Rights activist Md Sabir said that the youths were living in the same village where Muzibullah was staying so they used to talk to him occasionally but that did not mean that they were involved in any kind of terror activities.
Meanwhile, the NIA has been conducting intensive raids in Jharkhand to break the network of Indian Mujahiddin’s (IM) Ranchi Module.
Till date six suspects have been arrested and several items linked to terror groups have been recovered in various raids on the tip off of arrested suspects.
Four suspected IM operatives, accused in the Patna serial blasts, were arrested from Ranchi and Daltonganj by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) teams on May 16. All the four suspected IM operatives were in the most wanted list of the investigating agencies which had also announced cash reward against any information leading to their arrests.
The four accused—Taufique, Numan Ansari, Haider and Muzibullah were arrested on a tip-off given by the Patna blast mastermind Tehseen Akhtar, arrested earlier by the investigating agencies from a village near Indo-Nepal border in Darjeeling in March this year.