LUCKNOW: The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has claimed that the police has wrongly framed Shahbaz Ahmed in connection with the serial bombings in Jaipur.
"The Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police, which arrested Ahmed after a tip-off by the Jaipur police, has not been able to collect concrete evidence to prove that he was involved in the blast," Sandeep Pandey, social activist and Magsaysay award winner, told reporters in Lucknow on Monday.
The PUCL also released a report that claimed that Ahmed was innocent.
Ahmed was arrested in Lucknow August and was termed by the ATS to be one of the kingpins behind the serial blasts in Jaipur May 13.
"He (Ahmed) was attending to his wife who delivered her third child in April after a major operation. How can a person plan such a heinous crime if he is in such a crisis?" questioned Pandey.
The PUCL admitted that Ahmed was a member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) but but claimed he left the organisation soon after his marriage.
"He got married to Sadaf in 2002 and shifted to Lucknow soon to earn a living as he was not interested in his family business of carpet manufacturing. He opened a small cyber café in old Lucknow in 2004 and subsequently started career counselling and travel business from the same outlet," he said.
"In contrast to the police claim that a huge amount of money transaction took place in his bank account before the blasts, we found that the single largest transaction was of Rs.15,000 only," Pandey claimed.
"The PUCL demands that if the police is not able to gather evidence against him, he should be released and those police officials involved in framing false charges against him should be booked," he added.
The six-member fact-finding team of PUCL, besides Pandey, included former director-general of Uttar Pradesh police S.R. Darapuri and a retired inspector-general of police SM Naseem.
