NIA to file charge sheet in high court blast case on March 14

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday told a court here that it would file its charge sheet in the September 2011 terror blast case at the Delhi High Court on March 14.

The court sources said the NIA, during an in-chamber hearing, told District Judge HS Sharma that it would file the charge sheet on Wednesday in the terror case, in which 17 people had been killed and over 90 others were injured.

The investigating agency also sought the court to issue the process of proclamation against Junaid, Chota Hafeez and Amir Kamal, who too are allegedly involved in the September 7, 2011 blast and are evading arrest, the sources said.

They added the NIA was to file the charge sheet today itself but could not do so as it was in the final stage of preparing it.

Besides these three, Amir Abbas Dev and Wasim Akram Malik are presently in jail under judicial custody since their arrest by NIA sleuths for their alleged roles in the case.

Malik has been dubbed by the NIA as a 'key link' in the conspiracy for the blast outside gate 5 of the high court.

According to the NIA, information about Malik was given by Azhar Ali, a Hizbul Mujahideen module, who is in Kotbalwal Jail in Jammu since 2009.

The NIA had seized three mobile phones from Jammu and Kishtwar residences of Malik, a Jammu and Kashmir native studying Unani medicine in Bangladesh, during the probe.

Dev, a native of Jammu and Kashmir, was arrested on September 16 last year by the NIA after he was allegedly found to have sent terror e-mails to media groups after the blast.

A magistrate had earlier recorded Dev's statement under Section 164 of the CrPC in an in-camera proceeding.

A statement recorded by a magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC bars an accused from resiling from his depositions during the trial and make him liable for prosecution for perjury if he does so.