'Govt using unreliable internet downloads to refute Tamang report'

AHMEDABAD: In order to disprove magistrate SP Tamang's inquiry report in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, the state government used straight downloads from a web portal to counter its own forensic laboratory's ballistic reports. Counsel of Ishrat Jahan's mother advocate IH Syed argued before the division bench on Thursday that the government was relying on a website without credentials against the report of its own specialised set up.
Advocate Syed said that the website is updated by anonymous person and number of times information changes on its pages. He submitted that the ballistic science was a very specialised subject, and in the microscopic comparison in laboratory it can be found out which bullet was fired from a particular weapon.
Magistrate Tamang has relied on the ballistic report and concluded that police fired from AK-56 at the deceased and planted weapons on them, the lawyer argued.
After his inquiry, magistrate Tamang had concluded that Ishrat, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in a fake encounter case.
He concluded that the crime branch sleuths fired at the deceased from AK-56 and then planted the weapons on the dead bodies. The magisterial report cited the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) Gandhinagar's report and pointed out that the bullets of 7.62 calibre, which were found from the alleged terrorists' bodies, were fired from which particular weapon.
Claiming that magistrate's Tamang's conclusions were "perverse", the advocate general Kamal Trivedi provided certain documents to the court to show that 7.62 calibre bullets can be fired from AK-56 as well as AK-47. The police claimed that they had fired from AK-47, but the magistrate wrongly reached to a conclusion that AK-56 was used illegally by police and not their official weapon, AK-47.
Expressing distrust over state machinery, Shamima Kausar's counsel almost complained before the court on how the state government supported GL Singhal's case challenging Tamang report.
He said that Singhal had made the state government a respondent, which during hearing supported Singhal's case only to quash Tamang report. "If the prosecution, in this state, behaves in this manner, how can we trust even them for our case, wherein the allegations are against top cops," the lawyer submitted.