Jaipur: The Rajasthan police, on Wednesday, arrested Shahbaz Hussain, who was acquitted by a special court in Jaipur which delivered the final judgment in the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts case on December 18, 2019.
Shahbaz, was not immediately released after the acquittal order since there were warrants against him in other cases under sections 353 (assaults or criminal force otherwise than on grave and sudden provocation) and 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant to deter him from discharging his duty) of the Indian Penal Code.
On December 25, the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) picked Shahbaz from the Jaipur central jail and arrested him in a case registered on May 13, 2008, relating to explosives defused by a bomb disposal squad.
This case was not tried with the eight other cases relating to the 2008 serial bomb blasts.
People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has condemned his arrest and also urged the chief minister to ensure Shahbaz’s immediate release.
“The PUCL is shocked at the vindictiveness of the Jaipur police for rearresting Shahbaz Hussain, who was acquitted by a Jaipur special court,” PUCL said in a press statement released on Friday.
“For 11 years Shahbaz and the four others [who were convicted], were in Jaipur central jail, next to the office of the ATS. It’s clearly a malicious act of the Jaipur ATS police to not investigate this case along with the other cases related to the 2008 bomb blasts case.
“It’s clear that the Jaipur police has operated maliciously and tried to prevent the release of Shahbaz. They don’t wish to set him free. Rajasthan police is trying to hide something which could come out with the release of Shahbaz.
“This is an attack on Shahbaz’s constitutional and human rights,” the PUCL statement reads.
When Hussain was initially framed in the 2008 bomb blasts case in which he was later acquitted, human rights groups and civil society members had conducted an investigation into the case and presented a fact-finding report that rebutted the Rajasthan police’s claims against Hussain.
Also read: 2008 Jaipur Bomb Blasts Case: Four Convicted, One Acquitted
Rajasthan police had alleged that Shahbaz Hussain made transactions worth crores of rupees from his accounts to finance the terror attack. When the PUCL team checked his accounts in the IndusInd Bank and the SBI, the claims were proven wrong.
“In the account with IndusInd bank, the balance was zero and in that with SBI, the balance was Rajasthan Rs 1,806 and there was no transaction between December, 2007 and May, 2008. The single largest transaction in Hussain’s account was that of Rs 15,000,” the report reads.
The police also claimed that Hussain had sent an e-mail from a cybercafe in Sahibabad in Ghaziabad between May 10 and 13, 2008, just before the blasts in Jaipur. However, verification of his call log suggested that he was present in Lucknow at the time.
Hussain’s identification by the owner of the cafe, more than five months after he allegedly visited it, had also raised obvious doubts.