The Navi Mumbai police has pointed to a few lapses in the security escort given to Afzal Usmani, who escaped from the sessions court on Friday afternoon. Police sources said the escort party failed to place an officer at the end of the queue that escorts the accused, which would have allowed the officer to monitor the movements.
Explaining the common tactics adhered to while escorting a large number of prisoners, an officer said, “There is one policeman attached to every prisoner along with two additional officers. They are taken in a queue to and from the courtroom where one policeman follows the line from the end so that he gets a vantage view of the movement of all the accused. This precaution seems to have been overlooked by API Ram Chopade after he came out of the courtroom where he had gone to take an update on the postponed timing for producing the accused,” said an officer.
Usmani then took advantage of the heavy crowd in the court passageway and slipped away. API Chopade along with ASI Sanjay Deshmukh were suspended for their negligence. There were 11 policemen escorting the 8 accused with one officer assigned to every undertrial, along with two additional men and the escort leader that was API Chopade.
DCP Ashok Morale said, “The DCP traffic, Vijay Patil, is conducting an inquiry. We admit there has been a lapse but one should wait for the inquiry report to judge the incident impartially.”
Usmani was the first person to be arrested on August 27, 2008, for his alleged role in the Gujarat’s Ahmedabad and Surat blast case, where 50 people were killed and 200 odd people injured. A day later 22 bombs were found planted across Surat.
The crime branch learned about the
name “Indian Mujahideen”, which was being used by the terrorists, after interrogating Usmani. Further investigations had led to the exposure of the IM in Maharashtra.