Appearing before chief metropolitan magistrate Vinod Yadav, the accused Imran and his wife, who have been in jail for the past four months, asked court’s permission to tell their side of the story. Imran alleged he was just a businessman and that cops had falsely implicated him just because he had lived in Pakistan for the past 25 years despite being an Indian citizen.
He said he had applied to the central government through Gujarat government for permanently settling in India and surrendering his Pakistani identity documents. He said when he came to India to complete the legal process, he was arrested and falsely implicated. He also alleged that all the copies of his documents, which would prove his innocence, were handed over to the IO during investigations, but they were withheld by the IO for the reasons “best known to him”.
After hearing his story for almost 45 minutes about the alleged torture meted out to him by police, the court gave Imran a chance to prove his innocence . He was granted interim bail for two weeks to go to Gujarat and get documents to support his claims that he was just an innocent businessman.
“Considering the fact that accused and his wife could be victims of circumstances, this court cannot close its eyes to their plight … particularly when there may exist documents that could show his innocence ,” the judge said while asking Imran to furnish a bond of Rs 20,000.
Imran and his wife were arrested by police in December 2011. Police said the couple had come to India with a motive to kill Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The officials of the special cell of Delhi Police had said that Imran and his wife were jihadis from Karachi, Pakistan, and had been sent to India on a mission.
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