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Parliament attack: Defence counsel challenges proof against Jilani

The prosecution's case against S A R Jilani, who was allegedly involved in the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, seems to have weakened.

Jilani, a thirty-something Kashmiri, taught Arabic at Zakir Hussain College in Delhi University before he was arrested on December 15.

According to the investigating agencies, what proved his involvement was a phone call that he received from his younger stepbrother, Faizal, a day after the attack.

A probe into the phone records of another co-accused, Showket Guru, also threw up Jilani's mobile phone number, the prosecution said.

The police translated from Kashmiri to Hindi the conversation between Jilani and his cousin, and this is what it allegedly said:

Caller [Faizal]: What did you do in Delhi?
Receiver [Jilani]: It was important (laughs).

One Rashid Ali translated the conversation. In his testimony to the court, he said, "I am 5th or 6th pass. I cannot write Hindi. One of my friends had told me to go to the special cell and I translated three conversations."

Ali works for a transporter in Azadpur fruit market, north Delhi.

"The investigating officer in the case is on record in the court saying that he had not even heard the taped conversations. Neither did the police bother to confirm the authenticity of the translation," defence lawyer Seema Gulati said.

On Tuesday, the taped conversation was played in the courtroom and two translators produced by the defence counsel challenged the police translation.

They contended that both the questions and their respective answers were incorrectly translated.

One of the experts produced by the defence counsel was award winning Delhi-based filmmaker Sanjay Kak, a Kashmiri Pandit. This was his translation.

Caller: What has happened?
Receiver: What, in Delhi?
Caller: What has happened? In Delhi?
Receiver: (laughing) By God...!

"The phrase 'It was important, or yeh zarrori tha', does not appear in the taped conversation. I know Kashmiri, as it is my mother tongue. I do translation on a regular basis from several languages. It requires a certain specialised skill and I claim expertise in deciphering the tape conversations because of my experience," Kak told the court.

The second expert was Sampath Prakash, a senior trade union leader from Kashmir with over 30 years' experience in translating. His version, a copy of which is available with rediff.com, matched Kak's.

Prakash also told the court that the phrase 'it was important' did not appear in the taped conversation.

The two also challenged the police's assertion that no English words appeared in the conversation.

"There were no English words like Internet, prospectus, syllabus etc, used in the conversation," Ali told the court.

But according to Prakash and Kak, the co-accused had asked his brother if he needed something and the latter replied, "Syllabus and prospectus."

Intriguingly, Ali did not sign a copy of the translation. "I was translating and telling Sub-Inspector Harinder Singh, but I did not know what he was writing. I had not signed the same," Ali told the court.

Further, the police had no Kashmiri transcript of the conversation and they admitted this in the court. And before the taped conversation was played in the courtroom on Wednesday, another error in the prosecution's handling of the case came to the fore.

The original cassette on which the phone call was recorded was not available with the court. It was with the police, which the defence lawyers said was improper.

The defence counsels for Jilani will produce witnesses for two more days. They include Faizal, who had made that call from Baramulla in north Kashmir.

According to the police charges, Jilani had prior knowledge of the attack. The police also said he was in touch with the prime accused, Afzal Hussain, who also belongs to Baramulla.

But Jilani has not confessed to any crime and Hussain has, in a TV interview, said Showket Guru and Jilani were not involved in any way.

The day-to-day hearings in the case continue in the designated Prevention of Terrorism Act court at Patiala House Courts and the arguments are expected to start in a couple of weeks.

Complete Coverage: The Attack on Parliament

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