The hearing of witnesses of prosecutors in the trial of 34 ethnic Burmese rebels began in the City Sessions Court, Kolkata today. The cross examination of the first witness was completed on the day.

The first witness produced by the prosecutors, was R. S Dhankar an Indian naval officer, who filed the First Information Report (FIR) on the arrested Burmese ethnic Arakan and Karen rebels in February 1998. He was cross examined today by the defence lawyers.

“The crux of his [R.S Dhankar] statement is that he had no personal knowledge about the case and he filed the complaint only as per the directions and details given by his senior officers,” one of the defence lawyers, Akshay Kumar Sharma told Mizzima.

R.S Dhankar, an officer if the Indian Navy posted at the fortress headquarters in Andaman and Nicobar Island in 1998, was the first person to file a complaint to the police on February 18, 1998 after the arrest of the Arakan and Karen rebels.

“There were many contradictions in his [R.S. Dhankar] statement and during cross examination,” said Sharma adding that “the prosecution has not been able to bring the important persons who were responsible in lodging this FIR.”

The rebels, identified as members of the National Unity Party of Arakan and the Karen National Union, both ethnic armed rebel groups fighting against the Burmese military dictators, were arrested in February 1998 in Landfall Island of Nicobar.

The rebels were then detained and put on trial in a Port Blair court in the Andaman-Nicobar archipelago but were later, on the basis of a Supreme Court order, shifted to Kolkata. They are currently lodged in Presidency jail in Kolkata.

The Supreme Court, following appeals from human rights activists, also ordered the case to be tried at a Sessions Court in Kolkata on a day to day basis.

The City Sessions Court, Kolkata on January 29 framed the charges against the rebels under the Arms Act, the Explosive Substances Act and the Foreigners Act and fixed the hearing of witnesses to be conducted on March 21, 22, and 23.

Sharma said, “The witness, who knows nothing [of the case] was sent intentionally. And in my opinion the prosecution cannot prove the contents of the first information report through this witness.”

According to the Indian defence establishment, the rebels were gunrunners allegedly supplying weapons to Indian insurgent groups in the northeast. They were arrested along with a huge cache of arms, ammunitions and explosives during a joint military exercise codenamed “Operation Leech” comprising the Army, Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard.

But the rebels, who claimed to be ‘Freedom Fighters’ fighting against the Burmese military dictators, said they were betrayed by Indian Military Intelligence, who promised to allow the rebels to set up base in Landfall Island in Nicobar. The rebels also accused the Indian Military Intelligence of killing six of their leaders in cold blood.

Two police personnel of the rank of head constable and constable from the police station in Andaman and Nicobar will be appearing in court as witnesses tomorrow for cross examination by the defence lawyers, Sharma said.