By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Parappanangady [Malappuram]: “How could I give eye witness statement against a youth named Muhammad Zakariya in the Bengaluru bomb blast case, when I haven’t even met him once in my life”, asks Parappanangady, Chettippady native Haridasan.
Muhammad Zakariya is the eighth accused in the 2008 Bengaluru bomb blast case and has been detained in the Parappana Agrahara jail for last four years without even being granted a day’s bail. It is in the same case PDP Chairman, Abdul Nasar Madani too is detained under trial as the 32nd accused.
“The witness statement submitted in the court under my name is a forged one, I haven’t even seen Zakariya once and I don’t know who he is. When the Bengaluru Police earlier asked me about him, I had made it clear that I don’t know anything about him,” says Haridasan who runs a timber mill at Chettippady.
“I haven’t until now signed any papers for the Bengaluru Police and it is of surprise that I wasn’t even informed about a witness statement submitted under my name in the Bengaluru Parappana Agrahara special court, “he added.
He says he saw a photo of Zakariya only very recently in one of the posters erected by the ‘Free Zakariya actions forum’.
It is quite unfortunate that without even letting me know, the Bengaluru Police forged witness statements in my name to trap an innocent youth, he said.
According to the charge sheet submitted by Bengaluru Police in court, Haridasan is the main eye witness who time and again saw Zakariya and other accused conspiring in a rented room at Chettippady owned by a local named Yousaf and the forged witness statement submitted in the court says that Haridasan heard Zakariya and other accused proclaiming war against other communities.
Haridasan asserted that he won’t at any cost stand by the Bengaluru Police’s attempts to fabricate cases against Zakariya. He besides rejected the Bengaluru police’s claim that they had read out his witness statements before him in Malayalam as he was unable to grasp Kannada.
On 5 February, 2009, the 19 year old Zakariya was arrested by the Bengaluru Police from a mobile phone servicing centre at Tirur, where he was working. Zakariya’s mother Biyyumma says that the Bengaluru Police arrested him and took him to Bangaluru without even informing his family. “It was only through the news channels we came to know about his arrest and regarding the accusations made against him” says the grieving mother.