My Private Parts Were Twisted, Hairs Plucked: Purohit

In a letter to NHRS, Lt Col Purohit named ATS officers who tortured him by twisting his private parts and plucking his hair.

In a detailed letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit has described the type of torture that he underwent in the hands of the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) when he was arrested under the draconian MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act). He described the torture as worse than hell.

Purohit was arrested for his alleged involvement in the 2008 Malegaon blasts in which 7 people were killed, He was jailed for 9 years on what turned out to be false and cooked up charges.

In the letter to NHRC, he says he was taken to an undisclosed house in Khandala soon after his arrest and kept in a room which had just one entrance and no windows. After 5-6 hours of questioning, Colonel RK Srivastava lunged at him from his chair, tore up his shirt and began beating him. After that Parambir Singh of ATS took over.

Purohit says he was made to strip and his private parts were twisted as he cried out in excruciating pain. Another officer then started plucking his hair from his chest and private parts. This lasted for 5-6 days.

All through, Srivastava, Parambir Singh and Hemant Karkare told him to admit his involvement in the Malageon blast. When he refused to admit to a crime he had not committed, the three officers put him in a room, stripped him and put on the AC to the lowest possible temperature. When his body started freezing, he was beaten black and blue with belts and sticks.

Later, Purohit was suspended in a flying position and his soles and legs were beaten badly.

At one point of time, according to Purohit’s letter, Srivastava threatened to bring Purohit’s wife, sister and mother and strip them naked. They then began discussing how to place a bomb in Purohit’s house.

The letter was made public by Times Now in an exclusive.

Earlier, Republic TV broke the story of an Army document confirming that Purohit was actually on an official duty gathering military intelligence at the time of the 2008 Malegaon blasts in relation to which he was jailed for 9 years.

A few hours after the report, a former member of the Mumbai ATS, currently suspended, claimed that he was an eyewitness to the ensuing investigation.

Mehboob Abdul Karim Mujawar, who was part of the ATS, claimed that the investigation into the Malegaon bomb blast was completely built up and fake.

“The investigation is fake. They have changed the story. The entire story has been changed in the case. There are imaginary statements,” he told Republic TV.

He said the recovered RDX that Purohit was accused of having supplied to the Malegaon bombers was actually planted by the ATS under the then government’s instructions.

Mujawar then made an explosive charge saying Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, the two accused bombers in the Malegaon blast, had been eliminated by the ATS. Subsequently, the direction of the probe was changed to implicate Sadhvi Pragya and Lt Col Purohit who had no role in the blast.