Subversion of Justice - The story of the Haren Pandya Murder case in Gujarat

From: Mail Today, 14 October 2011


A tale of two judgements

by Chitra Padmanabhan

EIGHT years after former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya’s murder, the Gujarat High Court recently acquitted all 12 men whom the trial court had convicted four years earlier, treating the case as part of a larger Muslim terror conspiracy.

With the High Court’s verdict resting on a consummate analysis of the evidence, the question — whodunit — looms larger on the horizon.

The Central Bureau of Investigation’s probe of the Pandya case, castigated by the High Court as “ botched up and blinkered”, provides a fascinating glimpse of how the same material facts surrounding the murder presented as evidence produced two critically contrasting responses.

The prosecution kept it simple: On March 26, 2003, Haren Pandya drove his Maruti 800 to Law Garden for his usual morning walk. As he parked the car, from its right materialised a man, who, before Pandya could alight, had shot him five times through a small opening in the driver’s window which had not been fully rolled up. The gap: about three inches, no more than a palm’s length.

Local vendor Anil Yadram Patel was produced as an eyewitness to the shooting who could identify the assailant Asghar Ali. The CBI claimed Asghar was part of a group instigated by fanatical cleric Mufti Sufiyan to spread terror among the Hindus by targeting their leaders, to avenge the 2002 killings of Gujarati Muslims. Extracting POTA confessions, it bunched Pandya’s case with some others.

The High Court found otherwise on testing the 10,000 odd pages of material brought on record during the trial.

Findings

Ultimately, the prosecution’s ‘ strength’ became its undoing.

Eyewitness account and confession, while divergent in every respect, converged fatally on the one crucial point to render them both physically impossible! Forensic evidence established that most if not all of Pandya’s injuries were simply impossible within the car and by a firing through a tiny opening — especially one groin injury, caused by a bullet fired at the lower part of the left scrotum and journeying diagonally upwards to the back of the right chest muscle. The first principle of forensic medicine is to be able to show the track of a bullet’s journey.

The prosecution- led witness who had clearly tracked the injury in the post- mortem report was categorical that the weapon would have to be held below the level of scrotum and to the victim’s left; an impossible feat through a three inch window opening on the right. Circular injuries indicated straight firing from a perpendicular position; a three inch window opening would only permit angled shots.

From day one all material facts belied the closed car murder theory but had no takers. The driver’s seat on which Pandya, with bloodsoaked clothes, was slumped was mysteriously clean.

The seven injuries together, suggested two different directions and levels of fire, signalling manoeuvrable space.

Rings of blackening and gunshot residue indicated the entry of seven bullets; only five were found inside Pandya’s body. The other two must have exited the body. Prompt forensic combing of the area yielded no bullets in the car or around. The murder could not have been inside the car, but somewhere else, near or far.

Pandya’s cell phone found in the car bore no trace of missed calls or messages on the screen, despite assertions of family and friends of repeated calls. How come?

The ex- minister’s secretary, Neelesh Bhatt, who reached the spot before the police had told the media that on opening the driver’s door Pandya’s feet virtually came on to his ( Bhatt’s) chest ( a shoving in, possibly).

Another report had three of Pandya’s walking buddies — senior bureaucrats and army officers — claiming to have walked with him that morning.

At the trial the prosecution maintained Pandya was shot as soon as he had parked the car, at about 7.30 a. m. The CBI officer denied knowledge of these reports; further, his bizarre explanation for the groin injury was accepted by the trial court over unanimous expert opinion, one being the doctor who did the post mortem.

‘ Killer’

The CBI created the killer’s persona through eyewitness Anil’s stupendously detailed description (“… lean, having a long moustache and deep- set eyes… cheeks were curving inside…). Anil’s very first account, to his employer, was that from his bench inside the park he had seen someone running.

The employer’s initial statement regarding Anil’s description went missing. The prosecution refrained from calling to trial other vendors said to have been present at the shooting or soon after, preferring Anil’s self- contradictory solo performance.

As for Asghar’s trace, the CBI claimed that five local Muslim youths arrested on April 3/ 4 by the Crime Branch apparently confessed to recent incidents of a Muslim terror revenge plan and admitted their complicity in the Pandya murder. The name ‘ Mehman’ ( guest) stored in one cell phone was hit man Asghar Ali calling from Hyderabad. A number trace, claimed the CBI, led to Asghar’s arrest in Hyderabad on April 17.

However, Asghar’s phone records showed no activity or location in Hyderabad in April.

The arresting officer changed the arrest narrative. Conveniently, the phone too went missing from CBI’s custody.

The CBI used a call made on Asghar’s phone ( now missing) at 7.33 a. m in the Law Garden area as corroboration of Pandya’s murder. Knowing the exact time at which Pandya reached the place was crucial. Yet, the one person who could clarify, Pandya’s wife Jagruti, was kept away from the trial.

While the CBI claimed knowledge of Asghar on April 3/ 4th from the youths arrested in Ahmedabad, its murder spot sketch along with the eyewitness’ thumb impression, dated March 29, had the name Asghar Ali written on it! Masked by sketch pen strokes, it showed up through a magnifying glass. Unconvincing explanations raised doubts about the organic origin of a Muslim revenge conspiracy and the date of Anil’s statements to the CBI.

Court

The CBI claimed Asghar took them to an empty flat in Ahmedabad where they recovered a pistol and revolver. The guns, with bullets professedly from Pandya’s body, were sent to Delhi’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory. The inexplicable change in colour and condition of the bullets raised doubts whether they were the same bullets taken from Pandya’s body. Discrediting the prosecution- led ‘ expert’ the trial court held that the eyewitness account and confession were enough to prove the case.

Taking the eyewitness account of Pandya’s closed car murder as a given the trial court found all other material wanting, including expert testimonies. It dismissed the clear track of the crucial groin injury saying that a bullet can change direction in the body; surmised fancifully about untracked injuries; and regarded the extent of opening of Pandya’s car window as a matter of interpretation not assessment.

The High Court, grounded in the fundamentals of the law, separated the grain from the chaff.

Noting that the medical and ballistic evidence could not square with the eyewitness’ inherently contradictory account, it questioned his very status as eyewitness to conclude that the material evidence on record “ could not support the conclusions drawn in the impugned judgment as far as killing of Mr. Haren Pandya… was concerned…” Subsequently, Jagruti Pandya has filed a writ petition in the Gujarat High Court seeking reinvestigation of her husband’s murder.

The writer is a freelance journalist

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