Was Sardana wrongly detained by Goa police as a terror suspect?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 12 February 2016 18:48 IST
Was Samir Sardana, suspected to be a terrorist, arrested and detained by Goa police for 10 days illegally without finding any material evidence to prove the charge?
Goa police denies the allegation but the JMFC court of Vasco has released him on bail yesterday, turning down the police plea to remand him further to police custody.
The Dehradun-based high profile consultant has to now report to the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Goa police for four days and has been restrained from travelling abroad while compounding his passport.
“His detention is completely illegal and police have failed to prove from any angle that he is a terror suspect”, Adv Shashikant Joshi told goanews.com.
Goa police had arrested Sardana in Vasco while found moving in a suspicious manner at the railway station on 1 February.
The suspicion rose after taking him into custody since he was possessing 6 passports including one valid one, 23 mobile SIM cards, four mobile phones, a laptop and an internet dongle.
Police became more suspicious since the son of a retired major general K N Sardana was simply not co-operating with the police and even refused to give passwords to his laptop or almost 35 email ids he had created.
The police then managed to crack the passwords but couldn’t find anything ‘explosive’ except the matter he was downloading from the Internet.
Though the police intended to detain him further, the police also admitted in its say: “although there is material which is anti-national and anti-establishment, however the suspected person could not be linked directly to any banned terror outfit beyond preoperational level.”
But Adv Joshi says the police have also not been able to tell the court what anti-national and anti-establishment matter he possessed.
“The digital data he has downloaded from the Internet regarding bomb blasts or the material of making bomb etc is legally available to any surfer”, he says.
Adv Joshi does not hold the police responsible for his arrest on the grounds of suspicion but detaining him for 10 days without having found any substantial evidence is illegal, stated the lawyer.
He appeared on behalf of Sardana’s maternal uncle, retired commander Harinder Singh Rawat while stating that the police did not even bother to inform Samir’s relatives about the arrest, in violation of the high court orders.
After arresting the chartered accountant having excellent academic record, the court remanded him to police custody twice, once for six days and then for four days.
In order to get him remanded for more days once again, the police used sentences like ‘material is extremely radicalised’, ‘appears he has studied mind control’ or ‘the suspect has serious anti-national sentiments.’
While no evidence has been submitted before the court to substantiate these charges, Adv Joshi also argues that Sardana’s arrest under Section 41 of CrPC itself was wrong.
He told the court the grounds for arrest under section 41, which include person in possession of implement of house breaking or stolen property, involved in cognisable offences or extradition or being a proclaimed offender, obstructs police officer, deserter from armed forces, released convict or arrest on requisition.
Sardana was released by the court since there was no other charge against him while none of the above criteria to charge him under section 41 of CrPC applied to him.
There was no other charge levied by the police against Samir Sardana.
Found guilty and then proven innocent.How common is this attitude amongst goans?