More Army officers may face Anti-Terrorist Squad questioning

After the arrest of Lt.Col. P.S. Purohit, more serving officers of the Indian Army could face questioning by Maharashtra’s anti-terrorist squad in connection with the Malegaon bomb blast conspiracy case. Till late Thursday evening, sources in the military insisted the Army was yet to get any request from the Mumbai ATS to question more serving officers. But speculation was rife that it was only a matter of time before it did so.

This indicates that suspicions exist of a wider conspiracy by right-wingers within the Army. With the Intelligence Bureau also probing the case, the Army’s own Military Intelligence may also conduct an investigation on whether the Malegaon blast conspiracy involves more serving officers.

This is all the more so as Lt. Col. P.S. Purohit is himself a military intelligence officer. The Mumbai ATS and IB investigation may also soon focus on Lt. Col. Purohit’s close friends in the Army, to see if they had any inkling of the alleged terror conspiracy.

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Aarushi case:Central Bureau of investigation turns to All-India Institute of Medical Sciences for help

The CBI, tied up in knots in the Aarushi murder investigation, is now banking on forensic examination of vital clues by experts at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences to crack the case.

The CBI had earlier sought the help of AIIMS experts in the Rizwanur Rehman probe in Kolkata and the gruesome Nithari killings in Noida.

The Noida police’s failure to recover the weapons used to kill Aarushi and the family servant Hemraj, even after intensive questioning of Dr Rajesh Talwar, has put added pressure on the CBI. It is also asking forensic scientists to re-examine the post-mortem reports to determine whether these were tampered with.

Forensic experts have told the CBI that it is possible the same weapon was used to kill both victims. They feel that a Nepali khukri, with one side blunt and the other one sharp, might have been used. “If two weapons were used, then one of them could be a butcher’s knife,” Dr Sudhir Gupta, AIIMS associate professor of forensic sciences, told this newspaper.

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