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Parliament attack case: Evidence against Geelani challenged

Basharat Peer in New Delhi

With just ten more witnesses left to record their statements in the Parliament attack case, the defense counsel for the suspended Delhi University lecturer, Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani, a co-accused in the case, on Monday challenged the 'genuineness' and the 'admissibility' of the evidence against him.

According to the police charges, Geelani who was arrested on December 15, had prior knowledge of the attack on Parliament and supported the attack. The police have also said that he was in touch with the prime accused, Showket Hussain Guru and Afzal Hussain, who belong to Geelani's home district Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir.

The prosecution said the primary evidence against Geelani is a phone call he received on December 14, 2001 from Kashmir and that his mobile phone number was found on the phone records of Showket Guru, the prime accused.

The defense counsel, Seema Gulati challenged the evidence saying that the tapes on which this particular call and many others were recorded were 'tampered with, erased and edited'.

"The original tape on which the police recorded the call was withheld and only a copy produced before the court," Gulati said.

She also challenged the translation of the recorded call got done by the police.

The call was made by Geelani's 18-year-old step-brother from Baramulla on December 14 and both the caller and the receiver has spoken in Kashmiri, she said.

In this connection, the prosecution counsel, DK Agarwal, presented two Central Forensic Science Laboratory experts and the Special Cell Sub-Inspector, Harinder Singh, who taped the phone conversation that is being seen by the prosecution to be the clinching evidence against Geelani.

Sub-Inspector Singh told the designated court that he had been asked to tape the calls coming on 10 numbers, including Geelani's, after the attack on Parliament.

"I recorded around 3-4 calls in Kashmiri and then asked an acquaintance of mine to send someone who knew Kashmiri. He sent a boy called Rashid Ali, (from the Sadar Bazaar area, Old Delhi), who translated the phone calls telling me the gist of the conversation," he told the court.

Since the defense is challenging the authenticity of the translation by Rashid Ali, he would be produced in the designated court on Tuesday.

"In a case like the attack on Parliament, how can the police rely on the translation by a random Kashmiri-knowing guy. It had to be done by a Kashmiri knowing person of stature and credibility," a defence lawyer said.

The basis on which the defense counsels are claiming that the tapes were doctored is that Singh told the court he had taped the calls coming on one phone number on the same tape.

"According to the mobile phone company records, calls of the duration of around seven and a half minutes were made to and from Geelani's phone since the taping began," Gulati said.

"But the CFSL experts are on record saying the cassettes they got had conversations of only two minutes and 10 seconds, which means they did not get the original tapes," she added.

CFSL expert Rajendra Singh, who appeared before the court on Monday, told the court that he was unable to identify the voice in the call due to the presence of too much outside interference.

Another expert S K Jain told the court that there was a 'high probability' of the voice being Geelani's. The defense counsel, Seema Gulati, however, pointed out that in his report he had said, 'probably it is Geelani's voice'.

The defense counsel has also, filed a petition in the Delhi court challenging the manner of taping the phone conversations and argued that no procedural rules were followed. "Not even the post-facto sanction has been taken for taping," she said.

Today's developments are significant, given the fact, that Geelani, has not confessed to any crime and the prime accused Showket Guru too has denied Geelani's involvement, while making a statement in the court.

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