Torture in Arthur road Jail in Mumbai

Arthur Road Jail was established in 1925. Never before were there inmates in such a large number as 80% Muslim as now. The worst torture meted out was never before as barbaric as now as far as the Muslim community is targeted in false war on terror. But even Hindus have tons of difficulties to pass through mental and physical torture although when they are arrested not on terror charges but land dealings. One of them wrote “If you want to see hell on earth you should visit Arthur Road Jail.”[1] Matching the notoriety of General Dyer of Jaliana wala bag in Amritsar is the jail superintendent Swati Sathe. During her tenure there were three terror cases in which innocent Muslims were accused and incarcerated there, the May 2006 arms haul case of Aurangabad- Malegaon-Ankai, the Mumbai serial attacks on local trains of July 2006 and Malegaon blasts of 2006. These cases were based on the false argument that the innocent accused had committed organized crimes. Lawyer Shahid Azmi had argued against the arrest. He had argued that MCOCA can be applied in cases of organized crimes but not terror. This ultimately became instrumental in SC staying the three cases of 2006. The section 2 (1)(e) of MCOCA focuses on "causing insurgency" could not be justified just on the basis of confession unless corroborated by circumstantial and hard evidence. India had unthinkingly joined the war on terror in the popular feeling generated after 9/11 despite the fact that no Indian had anything to do with the attack on America. Too officious to please the Americas and too reluctant to condemn American attacks in Iraq or Israelis attacking Palestinians during the same period. What the Americans were doing in Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and Bagram prisons was also going on in the Arthur Road prison under the supervision and direct involvement of the jail superintendent Swathi Sathe. The accused were brutally assaulted in the prison with Sathe taking part in it. One had his arm broken and another had his head broken. A son of one of the accused saw his father being taken away in police van with blood still oozing as he waited with a tiffin box he was carrying for his father. The madam wanted them to confess to the crimes the police alleged they had committed. She claimed that they had created insurgency there while they were being transferred to other prisons. Even the transfer of the prisoners was illegal and violated the norms. The judges found it very unbecoming of her and passed stricture against her and she was transferred. Her 'transfer' was without loss of pay or blood while theirs was so sanguinary. So willful was the whole conduct of transfer. Here it is contemporaneously relevant to note that Lt Col Prasad Purohit in his letter of May 30, 2014 to PM Narendra Modi delineated his own torture at the hands of the ATS telescoping blame on Hemant Karkare and Colonel RK Srivastava who arrested him on November 5, 2008. The obvious but shrewd calculation is that Purohit does not mention Karkare but targets Bagade. Karkare being proved a hero but is dead. Bagade arrested him personally. Srivastava did not flinch and take sides or subscribe to the majoritarian prejudice. Despite video proof and phone conversation and corroborated by many items seized from his house in Pune the army found Purohit a patriot and the army court of inquiry reposed faith in his work rather than focus on the crimes he committed under law of the land. He had a reconstructed knee while in service, now he blames it upon the ATS of damaging the reconstructed knee! [2] Aurangabad-Malegaon-Ankai arms haul case of May 2006, July 2006 case of serial bomb blasts in local trains of Mumbai and Malegaon blasts of September 8, 2006 were woven around innocent Muslims. Their confessions were the blank papers on which their signatures were extracted after weeks and months of unremitting torture. The focus of torture was: (a) The police wanted the accused to turn approver. (b) Their relatives were falsely implicated in terror charges when the arrested accused did not sign false statement prepared by the police. Dr Salman Farsi reveals how the accused were pressurized to confess in the 2006 blasts case: “They blindfolded me and left me in a room for three hours and used to beat me on the sole of my foot with sticks and on the insides of my fingers so that there were no evident signs of torture when I was produced in court.” [3] His negihbour was Mohammad Ali and both lived in Govandi. After the arrest the police would visit Mohammad Ali’s house and take out the children and thrashed them in public. Another hallmark of Arthur Road torture is sarcasm and irony as a weapon of mental torture after physical abuse. Noorulhoda another accused in the same case articulates it as it happened: ‘On Eid, ATS officers thrashed me saying that they were celebrating. They beat me mercilessly and ‘celebrated’ all the while saying it was their Eid gift’ “They used to strip us naked and tie our hands and legs together and beat my legs and penis with a stick. Then they used to tie a cloth on the sticks and strike hard on my head. All in a bid to force me to sign a confession statement that they had prepared! They told me that they would frame my family members in criminal cases and threatened to sexually assault my sister. When I could not take the physical and mental agony anymore, I signed that statement and my fate was sealed. I didn’t even know the statement’s contents. “They arrested me during Ramzan and tortured me by refusing to allow me to break my fast every evening. They threatened to force-feed me during the day. On Eid, ATS officers came in and thrashed me saying that they were celebrating Eid. They beat me mercilessly and ‘celebrated’ all the while saying it was an Eid gift. “Initially I was kept in solitary confinement. Then they kept me with really hardened criminals to instil fear in me. Once they targeted me in what is known in jail parlance as an ‘alarm’. They just ring an alarm and start attacking the inmates. Total mayhem ensues. I was among the 40 men who were picked up for the alarm. This happened in June 2008 when Swati Sathe was the jail superintendent.” In the serial blasts in local trains 37 people were arrested and tortured to own up what they had not done. They showed the judge their blood stained clothes and fractured hands of how the police had beaten them in the worst case of animality. The police carried out the order of Swati Sathe and bled them profusely. This was done against a premeditated design. First they were herded into one single room two weeks before their transfer to other prisons in Maharashtra. Their fate was sealed as their transfer to other jails was predetermined. But two weeks of beating became a daily routine. All this for one purpose to coerce them into confessing a crime of terror they had not committed but had been subjected to inhuman cruel treatment so that they would sign the prepared statement. [4] Abdul Azeem underwent the torturous ordeal so that he would confess his involvement in 7/11 and another fellow inmate of Arthur Road jail Adbul Samat had to go through the same so that he would self incriminate in the Aurangabad arms haul case. Some of the accused had come from educated parents who had known of how inhuman is the treatment given to the minority community members. Even before the ban of Students Islamic Movement of India came into effect they were wary of waywardness their children may fall victims of. Abdul Majid a primary school teacher and father of Zahid accused in 2006 blasts and Javed accused in 2006 arms haul case. “I always told him(Javed) not to keep the company of people who always think of exploding bombs as a way of opposing un-Islamic practices. He used to remove posters of un-Islamic films and other obscene elements that have corrupted Muslim youth. He spoke against Islamic outfits that are killing people in the name of God. And it just so happens that my innocent son found himself accused of being branded a terrorist — the same kind of people whose violent ways he was opposed to.” [5] Indeed the real life in Arthur Road jail is beyond decent limit and borders on the filthy and immoral routine life of a backward country of Africa. A builder had a civil case filed against another builder. But the police in Mumbai made it a Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime ACT (MCOCA) case. He was arrested on July 5th 2006 within two days it became clear that it was not a matter of organized crime and nor was it a case of terrorism. But he had to spend minimum one month according to MCOCA, though an innocent person. He spent 7 lakh rupees to avoid physical torture. His experience in the Arthur Road jail made him experience hell on earth as quoted earlier. He had to sleep on bare floor with many hundreds in the so called barrack. The barrack was meant for about 70 but actually more than 300 would sleep every night. The jail was meant for 820 but actually there were 3000 of them there. If anyone spread his arm it would touch the feet of another and if he spread his feet they would touch the head of someone. This would produce loud cursing by the one touched. The police had slapped MCOCA against him for their personal benefits. Even his brother was threatened to be implicated. There were 30 friends and relatives of his who were forced to give false witness against him for they were mentally tortured. If anyone complains against the jailer then there are influential prisoners who beat up the complainant. “A warden is a ruthless criminal serving life term for murder and has to manage 300 prisoners inside the barrack once the door closes from 6pm in the evening to 6am next morning, even the jail police does not enter the barrack at the time given above.” A report titled, "Torture in India 2009", by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) says that since April 1, 2001 to March 30, 2009 there were 1, 184 deaths in custody of which 191 were from Maharashtra (Khwaja Yunu was one such). Most of them were tortured and died within 48 hours of arrest. [6] [1] http://www.ispsquash.com/MCOCA_Jail.HTM [2] http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1803#.U_K3NqPVyt8 [3] http://www.tehelka.com/how-do-you-keep-the-faith/ [4] http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-711-blasts-accused-alleges-torture-by-police-1176247 [5]ibid. [6] Hindustan Times 12/9/09