Pune: After a delay of several years, charges were finally framed against the alleged co-founder of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) Yasin Bhatkal in connection with the 2010 German Bakery blast case at a court in Pune on Monday.
Bhatkal, also known as Ahmed Siddibappa Zarrar, was brought from the Tihar jail in Delhi and produced before the court of additional sessions judge K. D. Vadane.
The court read out the charges framed against him under the relevant Sections of the IPC, the Indian Explosives Substances Act and the Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act (UAPA).
Bhatkal, however, rejected the charges and pleaded not guilty.
This was the first time since his arrest in 2013 that he had been brought to the Pune court in connection with the blast.
It may be recalled that 17 people were killed and 64 injured when a bomb blew up at the Koregaon Park restaurant on February 13, 2010. The framing of charges happened after Bhatkal was given a chance to plead guilty, chose to claim innocence, insisting that he’d been framed in the case. “The charges against me are baseless,” he stated.
Meanwhile the ATS has in an application to the court raised security concerns about presenting Bhatkal physically in court during the forthcoming German Bakery trial and persuaded that he should be allowed to attend the proceedings through videoconferencing. According to Bhatkal’s advocate, Zaheer Khan Pathan, such an application has been presented three-four times with the assistant commissioner of
police of Delhi making the latest appeal.
However, Pathan has argued that Bhatkal’s physical presence is critical and the security concerns being raised by ATS are flimsy. He contended that Bhatkal could be kept at Yerwada jail or any other central jail in Maharashtra, instead of Tihar (where he is lodged now) for the trial.
Arrested in August 2013 from Motihari in Bihar, near the Indo-Nepal borders, Bhatkal is linked to several acts of terror across the country. He has already been convicted in the 2013 twin blast at Dilsukhnagar of Hyderabad. As an alleged key IM operative, he is also associated with blasts in Mumbai’s suburban trains in July 2006.
