Grenade attack: NIA finds incriminating chats, videos in phones of accused

A special court of NIA has granted three-day police remand of Rohan Masih and Vishal Masih, accused in the Sector-10 grenade attack case, to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The NIA had sought the remand for their interrogation. The agency said three mobile phones that were seized from the accused were sent to the Forensic Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh, for recovery of the data. The NIA said the data extraction report was received on January 15 and had been analysed.

Sector-10 incident

Rohan Masih and Vishal Masih had allegedly hurled a hand grenade at a house in Sector 10 on September 11 last. The police claimed that they had carried out the attack at the behest of US-based gangster-turned-terrorist Harpreet Singh, alias Happy Pashia, and Pakistan-based terrorist Harwinder Singh Rinda.

During further investigation various vital facts have come to the light with regard to the role and involvement of the accused in the case. Moreover, from analysis of the extracted data, various incriminating chats, videos, photos and foreign numbers, were found saved in mobile phones or WhatsApp contact list. This was required to be explained by the accused, the NIA said.

Apart from this, the walking pattern of the accused is required to be compared with the CCTV footage taken in possession from Integrated Command & Control Centre, Sector 17.

On the other hand, the defence counsel argued that there is no reasonable explanation in seeking police custody.

He said as per Section 187 of the BNSS, police remand of the accused cannot be obtained in the manner in which the prosecution was seeking as they had already obtained their police custody earlier.

After hearing of the arguments the court remanded the accused to police custody till February 3.