At 1:52 this afternoon, Majid Memon, a journalist, wrote an article “Yakub Memon: Break the official omerta – In #Yakub Memon case, state displayed bad faith” about his perceptions about the case and how he had helped verify information Yakub Memon had got with him about the residences of #Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and another smuggler, Taufiq Jallianwala, whom the #CBI had not known of before. He described videos Yakub had made of their residences, and chaperoning provided by the ISI in Karachi, Bangkok and Karachi again. He described audio recorded by him of Tiger Memon with his associates.
He says that the Narsimharao #government betrayed Yakub Memon due to increasing pressure about being soft on terror and that the various officials – not just of intelligence agencies, but diplomats as well were silent because of a top down omerta and should be granted amnesty from the charge of contempt of court, if they are to testify – B Raman too had hesitated for this reason, as per him.
By 6:04pm, #NDTV has published an article with statements from CBI officers that deny these claims. Shantanu Sen, who led the operation on the CBI end claims they knew there were differences in the Memon family over the blasts and some of them wanted to return to #India as they were not happy in Pakistan. He denies that any deal had been struck and that they nabbed Yakub in Kathmandu. He denied that Yakub Memon had been duped and points out that of the 11 family members who came to India, only four got sentenced. His parents got bail and charges against them would be dropped had the matter come to prosecution before they died.
Mr Chattwal, who had been named by Yakub’s ex-lawyer as the CBI contact who told them to get bail and later betrayed them, said that he had received no such instructions and that Yakub had not cooperated with the investigation, but that the evidence was recovered from him at the time of the arrest.
A few days earlier, Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor claimed not to know of the mitigating circumstances B Raman wrote of at all.
One possibility is that there is an evil conspiracy on hand, etc etc.
Is the other explanation more simple?
Is this yet another horrendous example of lack of communication between investigating and intelligence agencies? B Raman who headed Pakistan desk of R&AW and oversaw the arrest clearly saw mitigating circumstances. Shantanu Sen who led the CBI investigation was clearly aware of cooperation as his claim of Yakub Memon not being duped demonstrates (if there was no deal, where would a question of duping arise?). On the other hand, Chattwal, who apparently was the CBI guy at the courts end was not aware of any deal and believes the evidence to have been recovered from Yakub at the time of his arrest. Ujjwal Nikam, public prosecutor who asked for the #death penalty is not aware of any mitigating circumstances at all.
That there was some deal does not take rocket science to understand. If Yakub Memon was not cooperating and had been arrested and evidence against himself recovered, why would he call his family to India? Morever, if Yakub Memon had any evidence proving his own guilt, why in the world would he carry it at all, when he knows the documents he carries will go to Indian authorities? The idea is he came to India expecting justice and mercy for cooperation, not proving own guilt, right?
The 30th approaches and this story only gets murkier.