Trapping the innocent

For years now innocent Muslims with no criminal record have been snared and then framed in cases of terrorist acts and other dreaded charges like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. They have been detained for years and then in many cases released without any charges proved against them in the court of law. This is a sorrowful saga of detention, torture and acquittal. The modus operandi is to use a Muslim police informer and get innocent arrested and incarcerated and then for lack of evidence release them. There is no compensation paid for the unlawful detention and torture and loss of working hours of the arbitrarily detained and tortured and deprived of freedom as well as loss of income. Most of the detainees also happen to be bread winners of their families.
Cases just pile up. The nine accused in MALEGAON 2006 blasts are of the same vintage.
The imam of the Haj house in Mumbai is an example. Sajid Sheikh is a police informer who also worked for Mahrashtra ATS and even for the IB. He got Maulana Yahyah Baksh arrested. When nothing was found against the maulana he was released from prison. Sajid also got three Kashmiris arrested. He allegedly told the police that he had overheard them talking about planning an attack on Mumbai local trains in. A look at his background reveals also the mindset of the police who employ the people like him. He got his three brothers arrested on false charges of terrorism for the sake of getting one lakh rupees. As he is from MALEGAON he reminds one of another police informer Abrar Ahmed. Abrar is also alleged to have accepted money and helped the police in framing six others from the town in the 2006 blasts case. He would regularly bring money from the police as is alleged by no other than the sitting MLA Mufti Ismail from Malegaon. Sajid has claimed that he knew the internal story of the 2006 blasts. When he got the three Kashmiris arrested the police recovered 20 detonators, timers, gelatin and other bomb making materials. There is enough credibility deficit of this person. He was sitting on one platform while the Kashmiris were sitting in another and yet he overheard what they were talking. How could they be talking in Urdu and that so loudly that he would overhear so far and that too such a sensitive matter! He also falsely claimed that he had joined the Shiv Sena. He was also involved in a bloody attack on him in which choppers and swords were used. He had also claimed that the terrorists had reconnoitered the locality in MALEGAON 2006 on the pretext of finding suitable match for marriage. This is highly improbable that on the most pious day of Shab e barat they should be searching a girl or a boy for marriage. He was also charged with “waging war against the nation.’And the fun is that with all this in his background the man has been set free. At whose behest?
The statement issued by National Meet organized by ANHAD, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Foundation for Civil Liberties, Jaipur, INSAF, Jamia Teacher’s Solidarity Association on January 28 2011 is worth mention. “There is an almost universal sentiment of fear and growing despair among Muslim citizens of the country. There is mounting disillusionment with all institutions of governance, and more so with the police and judiciary, as well as with political parties and to some extent the media. There isfgf on the one hand the constant dread of being profiled as a terrorist, or of a loved one being so profiled, with the attendant fears of illegal and prolonged detention, denial of bail, torture, unfair and biased investigation and trial, and extra judicial killings. There is on the other hand the lived experience of day to day discrimination, in education, employment, housing and public services, which entrap the community in hopeless conditions of insecurity, poverty and want.” All this owe to the police and the investigation agencies. Then the question arises as to who is behind this elaborate arrangement?
As the cases are registered in different states of the country with different parties in power the inference is that the only organization that has the clout and commiited ideology of its cadres is naturally the Hindu right groups under its main component, Rashtriya Swayamsevak sangh, RSS. What the police have done to the Muslims meets one of the most important tenets of the Hindutva or RSS. “The consistent stereotypical profiling and insensitivity towards Muslims has pushed them from being citizens of a democratic country to the position of second grade citizenship.”
This is what Golwalker and Savarkar also spoke and wrote about long ago.
What some of them went through is truly shocking. This is what Mohammad Raisuddin said of his incarceration in Hyderbad: "We were kept in isolation. The investigators told me that all the other boys they picked up were dead. They subjected me to gunshots near my feet when I was taken outside blindfolded. Each step I took, I felt it was the last. Can you imagine your ears and mouth burnt? That is what electric shocks do to you. I can still smell burnt meat, which was my own”. Rahim adds: "It is like I am responsible for any crime that takes place in Hyderabad. A man gets shot, police come to my place. Someone is robbed, police come and say, 'Saahab bula rahe hain.' (the boss has called you) It will never stop," Rahim says.
Zahid Ansari was one of the nine accused in September 8, 2006 blasts in Maleagon. When he was in prison his wife Salma wept before the human rights organizations activists: “I had been married to him only for six months when they arrested him. I tried telling them that he was leading the Friday prayers when the Malegaon blasts happened, but they did not listen to me. He is a pious Muslim and led prayers all five times in the Mosque. How can he be responsible for the murder of so many Muslims? After all that blast did kill 31 Muslims."
In the case of the burning incident of Sabarmati express at Godhra on February27, 2002, Khatoon Bibi, a mother of five bemoans how her three sons were arrested on charges of terrorism: "Nine years ago, some policemen came to our jhuggi and picked up my three sons. When I pleaded with them, they told me, 'don't worry, we are just taking them to bada sahib (sic).' Bibi breaks down as she recalls the night her husband died five years ago.
"He had cancer of the throat. I ran everywhere so that my sons could come at his burial. Forget burial, they are yet to see their own father's grave."
"Even today, my sons Shamsher, Sultan and Sadiq tell me about the torture. My sons have become weak. You should have seen them before they were arrested. They were my pride and joy. All three are just skeletons now."
Shamsher, the eldest son has two school-going children and a wife, while Sultan has a baby girl and his wife. With no male member left in the family, the mother and her two daughters-in-law bring home the meager money they earn from domestic chores.
"I have been a widow for the past five years. It is Allah's blessings that I still take care of my two daughters-in-law and three grand children. The same Allah will help me bring back my sons."





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'I got Kashmiri terrorists arrested' - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/I-got-Kashmiri-terrorists-arrested/articleshow/7330077.cms#ixzz1CDglLZSU
He is still called 'Bomb blasts Raisuddin.' Rediff.com January 29, 2011.
'They applied electric shocks on my ears and mouth.' Rediff.com Jan 29 2011.
'Allah will help me bring back my sons'. Rediff.lcom January 29, 2011.