Make ATS men take narco test to come clean: Pragya

NASHIK: Pragya Singh Thakur, arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Maharashtra police for her alleged involvement in the September 29 Malegaon blast, has accused investigators of illegally confining and torturing her.

Willing to take any scientific tests, Thakur moved an application through her lawyer Ganesh Sovani in a Nashik court on Monday, asking ATS officers to undergo medical tests, including narco-analysis, to come clean on her allegations.

The application reads: “I say that it is necessary that a detailed enquiry of my illegal detention, custodial torture, etc needs to be done and for which I am ready and willing to get subjected to any such medical tests and I also want the ATS officers, who interrogated me, tortured me, etc should also be put to the same tests.”

She also alleged that the ATS conducted narco-analysis on her without her consent.
The application, which seeks an inquiry into Thakur’s allegations by an officer of the rank of superintendent of police, will be heard by Nashik chief judicial magistrate on November 29 and the ATS is likely to file its reply.

The ATS produced Thakur and other blast suspects in the court of second division civil judge HK Ganatra on Monday, seeking extension of their judicial remand which ends on Tuesday. Others who were brought to the court on Monday included Shivnarayan Singh, Shyamlal Sahu, retired major Ramesh Upadhayay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar and Jagdish Mahtre. The court extended their judicial custody till November 29.

Clad in a saffron saaree, Thakur was brought to the Nashik court complex amid high security from Mumbai. Sporting a tilak and a rudraksha choker. Thakur chose not to wear the hood to hide her face. She appeared calm and composed when called to the dock and even waved to her sister Pratibha Jha from there.

When judge Ganatra asked her what was written in the application her lawyer had moved, Thakur said: “Mujhe maloom nahin mera kasoor kya hai (I do not know what my crime is?).”

 “I am helpless. All court proceedings are in English and I don’t understand anything,” Thakur said in Hindi. The judge then directed her lawyer Sovani to explain the entire application to her in Hindi.

Thakur has begun the 10-page application by saying that she became a “sanyasin” on January 30 last year and started living in a Jabalpur ashram.

At the time of the Malegaon blast on September 29, she was in Indore at the home of one of her disciples and returned to Jabalpur on October 4, she claimed.

Thakur stated that she received a phone call on October 7 from an ATS officer named Sawant, who wanted to question her about her LML Freedom motorcycle in Surat. It was only after reaching Surat on October 10 that she came to know for the “first time” that her bike had been “allegedly used in the Malegaon blast”, the application said.

Thakur claimed that she sold the bike in October 2004 for Rs24,000 to Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in December 2007.

She alleged Sawant took her from Surat to the ATS’ Kalachowkie office in Mumbai along with her disciple Bhimbhare Pasricha, whom they forced to beat her up. Later, an ATS official beat her up and she was even subjected to abuse in a “vulgar and obscene language”, the application said.

Thakur stated when senior officers came to know about her illegal detention, she was taken to Hotel Rajdoot in Nagpada, from where she was forced to call up a couple of persons to tell them that she was “doing fine” in Mumbai.

She “developed acute abdominal and kidney pains” and was then taken to Shushrusta hospital, the application claimed.

When her condition didn’t improve, she was taken to a “highrise” hospital with her face covered in a black hood and was treated there for two to three days, the application alleged.

Thakur alleged that she was arrested only on October 23 after spending more than 10 days in illegal detention.

Her sisters, Upma Singh and Pratibha Jha and her brother-in-law Bhagwan Jha were in the court. Bhagwan said that Thakur would never visit them in Surat even when she was in town. “She had renounced the world and was barely in touch with us,” he said.