26/11 And "Myth of Saffron Terrorism" - Part Two
Happenings Before 26/11 .... Continued from Part 1
In early November 2008, that is just before 26/11, certain important happenings took place as a part of "Operation Saffron Terrorism". The Mumbai ATS arrested Lt. Col. Purohit in connection with the Malegoan blast. They arrested him under the charges that he was a member of a Hindu extremist organization named Abhinav Bharat, he attended the their meetings and supplied RDX for the Malegoan blast.
It is very important to understand details of Lt. Col. Purohit's arrest because it is closely linked with 26/11 attacks.
Before we understand the link between Lt. Col. Purohit's arrest by ATS and 26/11 attacks, let's understand who is Lt. Col. Purohit? Why a working army officer was arrested in charges of terrorism? How he was arrested? How he was treated during interrogation? What charges were filed against him etc.
Lt. Col. Purohit....
Who is Lt. Col. Purohit?
Lt. Col. Purohit is an army decorated officer who was working in Military Intelligence (Popularly known as MI). The purpose of MI is to gather intelligence within the country and outside the country, analyze threat perception and neutralize them. As we can see this is a very sensitive department where only select few get a chance to work after thorough background check.
Officers working in this department often have to go deep undercover and work with dangerous people to gather intelligence. This is very risky, a small mistake can blow up their cover and get them killed. In their world there is nothing like black and white, or good or bad, everything is in the shades of gray. Undercover officers may have to cross the line sometimes, to earn the trust from the bad people, but they do it for the country. These officers sometimes have no contact with their families for months. All the communication between the undercover and his/her family is managed by the military. The job is tough but Lt. Col. Purohit was doing it for the country.
How was Lt. Col. Purohit arrested by Mumbai ATS?
Arresting a military personnel by a civilian police officer is not that easy. Police cannot arrest military personnel like any other civilian. They have to follow certain procedures to arrest.
If the military person is involved in some criminal activity outside the military camp and found on the crime site then local police can take him into the custody but have to inform the military establishment within a stipulated time period (I am not sure but it is within 48 hours). If the military personnel is not found on site but police wants to arrest that person then they have to apply to the military establishment and Military Police handover that person to the civilian police.
In Lt. Col. Purohit's case none of these procedures were followed. Lt. Col. Purohit himself has narrated how he was arrested by Mumbai ATS in his written complaint in 2013 to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), to the then Prime Minister of India and to the then President of India. Then Indian PM and President never replied to his complaint and NHRC is still investigating the complaint even after 6 years! Copy of his complaint is in the public domain for last so many years but still no one has taken any objection to what
Lt. Col. Purohit said or challenged his complaint in the court. which means what he has said, must be true. This letter is attached in this article for your review.
Lt. Col. Purohit said or challenged his complaint in the court. which means what he has said, must be true. This letter is attached in this article for your review.
During the last week of October 2008, Lt. Col. Purohit was taking a training at Panchmadhi in MP, when his superior, Col. R. K. Shrivastava went there personally and issued Travel Order to him to go to New Delhi for some urgent work. Colonel Shrivastava was to accompany him to New Delhi on 29th October 2008. On the way to the Bhopal airport, Colonel Strivastava took cellphone from Lt. Col. Purohit and did not show him his air tickets too. After checkin at the airport, Colonel Srivastava told Lt. Col. Purohit that they are going to Mumbai and not to New Delhi. After hearing this, Lt. Col. Purohit asked for his cell phone so that he can inform his wife but Colonel Shrivastava did not give the cell phone.
Now, as per the military procedure, if the travel plan is changed then a new Travel Order has to be issued but no new Travel Order was given to Lt. Col. Purohit. The question is, why Colonel Shrivastava did not follow the military procedure? Why Lt. Col. Purohit was given a Travel Order to go to New Delhi but then secretly taken to Mumbai? If Mumbai ATS wanted to interrogate/ arrest Lt. Col. Purohit then why they did not make a formal request to military establishment to handover Lt. Col. Purohit? It is very evident that Colonel Shrivastava did not follow official military rules, which means Lt. Col. Purohit was arrested ILLEGALLY.
After Reaching Mumbai airport late in the evening, Lt. Col. Purohit was hurriedly pushed into a private vehicle and taken to a private bungalow in Khandala (a place between Mumbai and Pune). Till he reached Khandala, Lt. Col. Purohit had no clue what was happening with him. He was received by Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Dy. ATS Chief Parambir Singh and other ATS officers in the bungalow.They tortured him for next NINE days and on 8th November 2008 they formally announced his arrest. This means, Lt. Col. Purohit was ILLEGALLY detained for NINE days by the Mumbai ATS.
Inhuman torture....
During these first nine days, the ATS team headed by Hemant Karkare gave worst than 3rd degree treatment to Lt. Col. Purohit. He was beaten up so badly that his several bones bones were broken, his ligaments were ruptured. Lt. Col. Purohit had told ATS officers that he had a knee surgery earlier and doctors have put steel plate in his leg and stretching his legs in 180 degrees would create serious injury but still they enjoyed doing it, resulting in severe injury. There are lot of graphic details that Lt. Col. Purohit has given in the letter that he wrote to the then Prime Minister of India. I am not sharing these details here because they are very graphic, violent and disgusting. But I am attaching the link of this letter in this article and interested readers can read at it at their own discretion.
The Mumbai ATS team lead by Hemant Karkare did not stop by torturing Lt. Col. Purohit physically. At one of of time, Karkare, his deputy Parambir Singh and Col. Shrivastava talked about arresting his mother, wife and sister and parading them naked in front of everyone!
ATS was doing all this torture and psychological pressure on Lt. Col. Purohit to make him accept his role in Malegoan bombing forcefully. But Lt. Col. Purohit did not agree to sign the confession and hence the torture continued.
After the initial police remand, when Lt. Col. Purohit was produced before the magistrate for extending the police custody. He informed the court about the torture and complained to the court with the names of the officers who tortured him. As a result, court ordered a medical exam in the military hospital. The medical exam reports confirmed the torture and hence court did not grant police custody but gave a judicial custody.
If these torture charges are true then it shows the indecency of Hemant Karkare, Parambir Singh and Col. Shrivastava. Karkare and his team behaved worst than an animal while dealing with a decorated military officer. It is really shameful behavior for an educated senior IPS officer. This is said, only with the underlining belief that the torture charges are true. The other side has neither challenged Lt. Col. Purohit's torture charges nor they have put out their side of story hence I will go with what is said by Lt. Col Purohit.
Please see the video of Lt. Col. Purohit's wife narrating how he was tortured.
Please see the video of the Lt. Col. Purohit's letter.
Please read the full handwritten letter that Lt. Col. Purohit wrote in Dec 2013 to the NHRC, then Prime Minister of India and then president of India. PMO did not even acknowledge, receiving this letter!
Warning - This letter has very graphic description of the torture, which some of you may not feel comfortable to read. Hence read this letter at your discretion.
If these allegations are indeed true then I don't know what Karkare was thinking when he tortured a decorated army officer, in an inhuman way. Did he think he was untouchable because of his links with the political leaders?
But Karma acts with its own justice. Within a month after arresting Lt. Col. Purohit, Hemant Karkare was killed by Pakistani terrorists on the night of 26/11. Not convinced about his death, his wife, Ms. Kavita started asking pointed questions about her husband's death but no one in the police department, government or politicians bothered to answer her questions. She was running from pillar to post but no one helped.
This was exactly how Lt. Col. Purohit's wife Ms. Aparna was running around, just a month earlier, asking questions about her husband after he was arrested by Karkare. She too was running from pillar to post wanting to know why her husband was arrested, where was he kept, what charges were filed etc but no one bothered to answer her. Sometimes Karma returns the punishment too quickly.
Please see the comments from Ms. Kavita Karkare about her husbands death.
There are many rumors as why Lt. Col. Purohit was made a scapegoat in this case. I cannot confirm any of these rumors because there is no corroborating information to support these claims. Hence I cannot say for sure, why Lt. Col. Purohit was picked up as a fall guy?
What happened to Lt. Col. Purohit after the arrest?
Mumbai ATS started collecting evidence against Lt. Col. Purohit. They raided a house in Deolali near Nashik and claimed that they recovered military grade RDX explosives from this house, which was stocked by Lt. Col Purohit.
Mumbai ATS initially claimed that the quantity seized in this house was stolen by Lt. Col. Purohit from the military stock. This was proved wrong because Indian military does not use this type of RDX for its use and a result they have no stock.
When this story fell apart, then they came up with another story. The story was, few months earlier, large quantity of RDX was seized during a raid in J&K. Lt. Col. Purohit was part of that raid and he walked away with 60 Kgs of RDX from that seizure and part of that quantity was used in the Malegoan blast.
This claim too fell apart because military later confirmed that all the quantity seized from the J&K raid was fully accounted for and it is safely stored with military. No quantity was stolen. In fact, military's internal inquiry proved that Lt. Col. was not an authorized person to handle RDX from the raid site and he was no where near that raid site. Please see the reports below where military confirmed this in the court.
Later in 2011when the investigation was transferred to NIA, they too found no truth in stolen RDX story.
But the quantity seized by Mumbai ATS was indeed a military grade RDX. If this was not stolen from the military stock or from raid then where did it come from? How Mumbai ATS got hold of this dangerous material? This should have been inquired but never investigated.
Another important point to understand. Lt. Col. Purohit is a trained military officer who knows what RDX is. Do you think he would stock it in a house where there is a thick population around and lots of families staying nearby? Though RDX is not explosive in normal stocking conditions and it requires very high grade spark to ignite (Improvised Explosive Devise or IED) but still a small mishap could have killed hundreds of innocent people. Do you think a trained military officer can take this risk? Hence ATS claim looks absurd.
Why Supreme Court grated bail to Lt. Col Purohit?
Government had pressed MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act) charges on Lt. Col. Purohit. This is a very stringent act in Maharashtra to control organized crime. A person booked under this charge can be kept in the jail infinitely without filing the charges and without a possibility of bail.
As per the provision, MCOCA can be applied only to those people who are repeat offender in the organized crimes. Lt. Col. Purohit was not arrested earlier for any organized crime hence MCOCA charges would have fallen apart in the lower court itself. Hence ATS and later NIA went out of their way to show Lt. Col. Purohit was involved in the Samjhauta express bombing too. They tried to collect evidence against Lt. Col. Purohit but they were not successful.
Lt. Col. Purohit tried to get MCOCA lifted but not successful even in Mumbai High Court. The SCI looked at the evidences, talked to the whiteness and found no merit in applying MCOCA. This was the big relief to Lt. Col. Purohit because MCOCA was not allowing him to get bail. Here are the details of SCI verdict.
Later a bail application was moved and SCI found that ATS and NIA had not filed even the formal charge sheet even after nine years! SCI talked to the witnesses and they told that they were beaten up and threatened by ATS to give the false statements earlier. Plus NIA had not submitted any formidable evidence to prove Lt. Col. Purohit's guilt. The RDX story too fell apart. The MCOCA was already removed and other charges filed were of minor nature. These minor charges attracted maximum of seven years punishment but Lt. Col. Purohit had already spent 9 years in jail. Hence SCI ultimately granted bail to him on 23rd August 2017.
When Lt. Col. Purohit got the bail in 2017, BJP government was in power at center as well as in the Maharashtra state. Hence some "Educated Delhi Khan Market Lutyens" came up with a brilliant theory that the BJP government influenced NIA to weaken the case so that Lt. Col. Purohit can get the bail!
Well, look at the time line. Lt. Col. Purohit was arrested in 2008 when there was a congress government at the center as well as in Maharashtra. This congress party government remained in power till 2014. which means they were in power for 6 years after Lt. Col. Purohit was arrested. Then why ATS and NIA could not gather evidences in those 6 years and file charges against Lt. Col. Purohit? Who had stopped them? If they had produced evidence in the court then no government would have been able to influence the court case.
Please see the article below to understand why SCI granted bail to Lt. Col. Purohit.
Few more reference material...
How military treated Lt. Col. Purohit after was released on bail?
Military had conducted its internal inquiry about the charges on Lt. Col. Purohit. Though this report was not published but sources indicate, military probed all the charges like whether Lt. Col. Purohit had kept his superiors and the office of MI informed about his association with Abhinav Bharat, did he file the reports and did he kept his team members informed about his activities. The military establishment also probed, the charges of steeling RDX from the seized explosives from J&K. This also proved wrong and military gave a statement to this effect in the court.
When Lt. Col. Purohit was released on bail from Taloja jail, military made extensive security arrangements to take out Lt. Col. Purohit in full protection. He was taken to the military's Colaba base in Mumbai and was given back his rank. He is not yet assigned to any active duty because of pending court case.
The natural question that comes to mind is, if military had found Lt. Col. Purohit guilty in its internal inquiry then why would they make provisions to take him out in full protection and give back his rank? If military had found him guilty then they too could have arrested him and court marshaled him.
It is rumored that military was paying full salary to his family when he was in jail for nine years. But that is not confirmed hence I will not say anything about it.
If military did not find Lt. Col. Purohit guilty in its internal inquiry then the logical conclusion could be, the cases filed by Maharashtra ATS and NIA are false.
Please see the video of how military made huge arrangements to take custody of Lt. Col. Purohit when he was released on bail from Taloja jail.
Now, let's come back to the question of How Lt. Col. Purohit's arrest is linked to 26/11 attacks?
I will explain the same points, explained in the Part One earlier to establish link. Let's understand the timelines...
8th September 2006 - Malegoan bomb blast
18th February 2007 - Samjhauta Express bombing
6th March 2007 - Illegal Pakistani national Kazmi arrested in Punjab for Samjhauta express bombing. His description matched with the person who was seen planting bomb in the Samjhauta Express.
20th March 2007 - While local police were still investigating the case, Kazmi was released by the court on the disposition given by a senior IPS officer, that Kazmi was innocent, police did not find any evidence of his involvement and must be released! He was released in just 14 days and was not even booked for illegal residency of a Pakistani national in India. He vanished from the radar without a trace.
Till March 2008 - All Home Ministry reports suggest involvement of SIMI and some other Pakistani groups in these two bombings.
26th March 2008 - SIMI chief Safdar Nagari was arrested and during a NARCO testing, he confirms that the Samjhauta express bombing and Malegoan city bombings were done by JeM, LeT and SIMI.He did not mention name/s
of any Hindu person or the organization during the testing. But in spite of having this clear information, investigating agencies never inquired about what Nagari said.
Note - Till March 2008, Home Ministry was believing that these two bomb blasts
was the work of Pakistani LeT and SIMI.
8th November 2008 - Maharashtra government arrest Colonel Purohit for his role in Malegoan blasts. UPA government coins the term “Saffron Terrorism” for the first time and start widespread publicity campaign.
Between 8th Nov 2008 and 26/11 - Senior UPAministers gave repeated public statements
accusing Hindu extremists groups inbombing Samjhauta Express and city of Malegoan. They portrayed the arrest of Lt. Col. Purohit and couple of Hindu activists as the part of "Saffron Terrorism". The term "Saffron Terrorism" obtained large spread publicity and every Indian was shocked to hear this.
AND WITHIN A MONTH AFTER THE ARRESTS, THE 26/11 HAPPENS…..
ALL THE TEN PAKISTANI TERRORISTS WERE WEARING SAFFRON THREADS ON THEIR WRISTS TO SHOW THEY WERE HINDUS AND ALL OF THEM HAD FAKE IDENTITY CARDS WITH HINDU NAMES.
ARE YOU FINDING THE CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN GOVERNMENT COINING THE TERM “SAFFRON TERRORISM”, ARREST OF LT. COL. PUROHIT AND 26/11 ATTACKS? THIS ALL HAPPENED WITHIN A SPAN OF JUST ONE MONTH.
In the next part; Part Three, we will see WHAT HAPPENED DURING 26/11 ATTACKS?what government said happened on 26/11 and what was the ground reality. We will also explain lots of unknown details that you might have never known.
