Defence alleges mobile phone planted on Red Fort attack convict

New Delhi, Feb 27 (UNI) Arif alias Ashfaq, sentenced to death in the Red Fort attack case, today alleged before the Delhi High Court that there were contradictions in the police claim that a mobile phone was seized from his possession in December 2000.

Counsel for Ashfaq, R M Tufail, submitted before the Division Bench headed by Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin that the said mobile phone was planted on Ashfaq by the police to implicate him in the case.

According to police, after the attack on the monument on December 22, 2000 by the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba in which three army personnel were killed, a search operation was conducted. The search led to a paper chit, the number on which led them to Ashfaq.

The defence told the court that the mobile phone was recovered in a second search which was conducted six hours later than the first in which the paper chit was found.

Several calls had been made from the phone to then chief secretary of Nagaland, the Investigation Officer himself and the Special Branch of Delhi Police during the three months preceding the actual attack, which remains unaccounted for, the defence told the court.

Also, the seizure memo prepared by the police did not mention either the model or the details of the phone, according to the counsel.

The police claim that the Motorola phone was having a Hutch card also stands wrong as no such card had been found in details from the service provider.

UNI