The NIA is yet to take a call on whether Purohit will be charged under MCOCA for the Malegaon case

One of the key witnesses of the Maharashtra ATS in the Malegaon 2008 blast case has accused the investigating agency of coercing him to implicate Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit.

Mail Today has accessed the complaint made by Capt Nitin Joshi, a former infantry officer working as an instructor at the Bhonsala Military School to the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission.

“Maharashtra ATS officers coerced me to say that I saw Purohit bringing in RDX that he used for both the Malegaon 2008 and the Samjhauta blast.

"ATS officers threatened to implicate me in false cases and to bodily harm my family if I didn’t implicate Purohit,’’ Joshi told Mail Today.

In his complaint against the state human rights commission, Joshi says that on several days, ATS officers compelled him to say that Purohit gave him illegal arms and ammunition to keep and that he saw RDX in Purohit’s house.

“I did not see RDX in his house and told them so. They beat me up and threatened my family. Purohit was a fine officer and they fixed him in false cases,’’ he added.

Joshi says he came into contact with Lt Col Purohit at the Bhonsla Military School and claims he was impressed with the military intelligence officer’s personality.

He concedes Purohit introduced him to the Abhinav Bharat group and its members, but he didn’t know them well.

“When I came to know that Purohit had been arrested in connection with the Malegaon 2008 blasts, I was completely taken aback. Soon, ATS officers came to our school and on October 31, 2008, they asked me to come to their office,’’ says Joshi.

He claims that he was forced to ‘fix Purohit.’

“I told them I had no idea about the Malegaon blasts, but they said that I was not cooperating with them. They also threatened to jail me. They dictated a letter to me, saying Purohit confessed to have supplied the RDX for Samjhauta,’’ he adds.

KP Raghuvanshi, the then chief of ATS, said that the force had done its job well and filed a charge-sheet.

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“A witness can turn hostile, and it is for the court to then decide which testimony is reliable,’’ he said.

Raghuvanshi, however, denied that the Maharashtra ATS had linked Purohit and the RDX to the Samjhauta blast.

The case was subsequently transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which is still to file a charge-sheet in the case.

Sharad Kumar, DG, NIA told Mail Today that the investigation is in its final stages and the charge-sheet is expected to be filed within the next four to six weeks.