Two suspected terrorists, arrested for allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks in the city, have in a letter submitted before a local court sought bail alleging police torture.
Abdul Latif and Riyaz Ali were arrested by the state anti-terrorism squad (ATS) on March 13 this year for allegedly planning to carry out attacks at the head quarters of public sector petroleum company ONGC, Thakkar Mall in suburban Mumbai and Mangaldas Market in south Mumbai.
On June 19, when the duo were produced before the Mazgaon metropolitan magistrate for extension of their judicial custody, the accused submitted a hand written letter to the court alleging torture by the ATS.
“I was picked up by the ATS on the night of March 12 from my house in Bandra and was taken to the Nagapada lock up where I was stripped off and beaten up the whole night,” Latif’s letter reads.
“The next day I along with my brother-in-law Riyaz was produced before a court and was falsely implicated in a terror attack case. The police threatened to harass my father and wife if I complained to the court about the torture,” the letter states.
Riyaz in his letter to the court has alleged that the anti-terrorism squad had physically and mentally tortured him and Latif while they were in the police custody.
“The ATS forcibly made us sign on blank white papers. We do not know what would be written in those documents. We have not given any confession,” it claims.
The court, however, rejected the letter and directed the two accused to file a proper bail plea through their lawyers.
The anti-terrorism squad had on June 8 filed their chargesheet in the case. According to the investigating agency, the duo were in touch with a person in Pakistan addressed as “uncle”, who is suspected to be Abdul Bashir Khan, an absconding accused in the 1993 serial bomb blasts and a close aide of prime conspirator of the blasts, Tiger Memon.
The two were asked to recruit young boys and arrange to send them to Pakistan for training and to carry out terror attacks in India.