Maharashtra Cops Explain Jaffer Siddiqui’s Court Absence

New Delhi: The Maharashtra Police told a Delhi court Tuesday that it could not present on May 29 suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Qateel Mohammed Jaffer Siddiqui, found murdered in Pune jail June 8, because he was required for a legal process in a Pune court.

The Maharashtra Police told Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav that the accused was required for an identification parade in a Pune court and, therefore, could not be presented before him despite his police custody ending May 29.
Siddiqui’s identification parade was conducted May 31 in a Pune court before five witnesses while one witness could not attend the proceedings due to his ill health, they said. “Since the accused was in judicial custody till June 8, efforts were made to hold the parade at the instance of the remaining witness but he could not recover from sickness,” said the Maharashtra Police.
The police told the court that they moved an application in a Pune court seeking permission to take the accused to Delhi but the same day the accused died in Pune Jail.
The reply of the Maharashtra Police came after a Delhi court’s order June 22.
The accused’s counsel M.S. Khan moved an application saying that his transit remand expired May 29 but he was not brought to Delhi but was sent to Pune jail.
The Delhi Police arrested the accused in 2011 and a city court allowed the Maharashtra Police to take him to Pune May 1.
The court gave the Maharashtra Police four weeks’ transit remand of Siddiqui to probe his alleged role in an attempt to plant a bomb at the Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganapati temple in Pune on the day of the German Bakery blast there Feb 13, 2010.
Siddiqui, a native of Bihar’s Barh Samaila village in Darbhanga district, was found strangled with a rope inside his cell in Pune jail June 8.
He was an accused in the Delhi’s Jama Masjid shooting case of 2010 and was arrested by Delhi Police in November 2011.

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