Do you
feel the pain of Indian Muslims, Mr. Prime Minister
Sunday October 28, 2012 08:15:56 AM,
Syed Zubair Ahmad
|
|
|
|
Mohammad Aamir Khan tied knot with
new life this week in the presence of eminent personalities of the
society. Aamir was recently acquitted by the Delhi High Court
after serving 14 years in prison in 1998 multiple blast cases.
His wedding reception on October 15 was graced by author Arundhati
Roy, activist Shabnam Hashmi, journalist Aziz Burney, lawyer N.D.
Pancholi, and politicians Ram Vilas Paswan and Mohammad Adeeb
besides his friends and family members. Glowing Aamir was
welcoming guests with broad smile on his face successfully hiding
the pain of 14 years that he had to spend in the dark cell of jail
as a terror accused. Arrested as teenager from near his home in
Azad Market area of New Delhi, when Aamir came out of jail after
acquittal he was a matured man of 32.
On a black night of 1998 he was arrested by Delhi police in
connection with multiple bomb blasts in three states. Twenty cases
including that of murder and sedition were filed against him when
he was just 18 years old. When he came out from the jail in
January 2012, his father had died and his mother was paralyzed due
to brain hemorrhage. Aamir was lucky that his acquittal and
painful story were highlighted by media pushing a minuscule
section of civil society to come out to help him.
While social group ANHAD of Shabnam Hashmi employed him at its
Delhi office the human rights group APCR of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind
gave him five lakh rupees to start life afresh. But not a penny
came from the government whose machinery almost ruined his life
and snatched 14 years of his prime youth, nor did come a word of
apology. And Aamir’s is not the only case.
There are hundreds of people from the Muslim community alone who
were implicated in terror blasts cases and other anti-national
activities in last 20 years but after spending many years, mostly
5-15, in jail they were ultimately acquitted by court for lack of
proof. However, several hundred others are still in jails for the
terror crimes their family says they never committed.
Their claim is getting credence as many such cases involving
Muslim youths are falling flat one by one in court of law. Many of
those Muslim youths are facing 40-50 cases with 1500-1600
witnesses to depose in courts in different states. With Aamir’s
case before us, one can guess how many years these youths will
have to spend in jails – maybe whole life – even before being
pronounced innocent or guilty. A good number of these youths have
already spent four or more years in jail but trials have not yet
started.
Those who are acquitted and those who are still in jails are
facing an uncertain and bleak future, a shattered family and
suspicious social life – a life of an outcast who faces social
boycott on daily basis. In fact trials and tabulations are not
confined to only those youths who were arrested and prosecuted
falsely on the charges of terrorism and sedition. Apart from their
mental, physical, emotional and financial suffering, their
families are suffering with more or less the same kind of trauma.
There are instances of some committing ‘suicides.’
Police arrested youths on the basis of suspicion or falsely
implicated them but media declared them terrorists even before
charge sheet and trial. The society believed the police and media
and treated them and their families as anti-nationals.
When Aamir was arrested even his close relatives distanced
themselves from his family because police used to come and harass
them only to make them frightened. The police also frightened the
neighbors of Aamir only to make his family socially boycotted and
stop any kind of help to the family from the neighbor. His parents
became penniless in those long years of trials. His father died in
2007 and his old mother, who rarely used to go out, had to visit
Ghaziabad court frequently until 2010 when she suffered a brain
hemorrhage.
It is said that tackling terrorism is not an easy job and our
intelligence agencies and police while in strenuous situation to
combat the menace may commit mistakes. After all they are human
beings.
But is it a mistake that you claim to recover RDX and other
explosives from a person, you arrest him and prosecute but during
years of trial you do not present proof before the court and the
person is ultimately acquitted? Is it mere a human error that you
pick couple of hundred youths of a particular community for terror
blasts in Malegaon, Ajmer, Jaipur and Hyderabad and all are
acquitted after years of imprisonment?
All these things have happened at fast pace since 2004 when
Congress-led UPA government was formed at the centre. And so more
shocking is the cold silence of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh
and Congress president Sonia Gandhi despite numerous Muslim
delegations have met them over the issue with three chief demands:
Prosecute policemen whose guilt has been exposed by court in
terror cases; award compensation to the people who have been
acquitted; set up an inquiry commission in the leadership of a
sitting judge of Supreme Court to look into all the terror cases.
The government has not acted on any one of the demands.
Why is PM Singh mum on the issue even when he is seeing acquittal
of Muslim youths in terror cases almost every week or month? On
October 6, a Delhi trial court acquitted three persons in 2007
terror conspiracy case. On September 26, the Supreme Court
acquitted 11 people in 1994 communal violence conspiracy case of
Gujarat and famously quoted name of a movie ‘My name is Khan but I
am not a terrorist’ to stress that law cannot be abused to harass
any person owning to his religion. On August 6, Delhi High Court
upheld acquittal of seven ‘terrorists’ saying they were nabbed
after a fake encounter in 2005 and were falsely implicated.
Why is the PM not announcing any relief for persons who had to
spend years in jail - thanks to the biased, not professional, acts
of the government machinery? If some people die in a road or train
accident, both state and central government announce compensation
for the victims within hours. But in these cases where police
deliberately implicate innocent people and kill them and their
entire family mentally, emotionally, financially and socially, no
voice of compensation is coming from any government. Why none is
questioning the set pattern of police and intelligence agencies
for minority witch hunt? One should not forget that it is Dr
Manmohan Singh who assuming the highest office of prime minister
in 2004 gave largest ever riot relief package to Sikh victims of
1984 Sikh riots.
On the cold silence of the prime minister, a section of the Muslim
community has now started to ask: If they were Sikh youths in
place of Muslim youths, would the PM still be silent as he is
today?
Syed Zubair Ahmad is a Writer & Journalist. He can be reached at smzubairahmad@gmail.com
|
Home |
Top of the Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
I |
|
|
More Headlines |
Curfew
continues in Aakot, Eid prayers offered at homes |
'India should build interdependent relations
with other nations' |
Himachal Pradesh polls: 37 percent
candidates never filed IT returns |
Policeman plotted to kill, eat women: Report |
Eid prayers offered amidst curfew in Faizabad |
Can Obama lose popular vote, yet regain
presidency? |
Stage set for Sunday's cabinet rejig |
Pakistani leaders call for unity to defeat terror
|
Human ancestors spent more time in trees: Study |
Imran Khan taken off plane in Toronto |
Curfew continues in Faizabad, four officials suspended |
|
Top Stories |
India celebrate Eid-ul-Azha with traditional fervour, gaiety
Religious fervour and
gaiety marked Eid-ul-Azha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, in
New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Malegaon and other parts of India Saturday.
Millions of people offered Eid prayers in the morning »
Curfew
continues in Aakot, Eid prayers offered at homes
Eid prayers offered amidst curfew in Faizabad
Kerala Muslims celebrate Eid-ul-Azha
Eid Al
Adha in India on October 27
|
|
Most Read |
Can
Obama lose popular vote, yet regain presidency?
As Barack Obama and Mitt Romney remained locked in a neck and neck
race, poll watchers raised the possibility of Republican
challenger winning the popular vote, but the president keeping
»
|
Stage set for Sunday's cabinet rejig
The stage
is set for Sunday's much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle with five
ministers stepping down, including S.M. Krishna and Ambika Soni,
to make way for newer, and possibly, younger faces.
The swearing in of the new ministers will take place in the
morning. A Rashtrapati Bhavan official told IANS "It will be held
at 11.30 a.m." Ahead »
|
|
News Pick |
'India should build interdependent relations
with other nations'
The geo-economics of growth in an interdependent world requires
India to build both interdependent relations with other countries
as well as the capability to defend its interests, strategic »
|
Imran Khan taken off plane in Toronto
Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan was Friday taken
off a US-bound flight at Toronto airport for questioning, a media
report said. Khan had boarded an American Airlines plane from
Toronto to New York to speak
»
|
Indian doctor detained in Saudi Arabia, alleges mother
Usmane
Ghani, an Indian doctor from this city working in a military
hospital at Riyadh, has been detained by the Saudi Arabian police
at the behest of the Indian government, alleged his grieving
mother Fathima Khan here Friday.
"I got a call from his wife Rashida Oct 8 that my son was
picked »
|

Arafat Sermon:
Grand Mufti urges to be role models of good behavior
Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al
Al-Sheikh delivered the Arafat sermon and led prayers at the
Namira Mosque, re-enacting
»
Hajj officially kicks off; About 4mn pilgrims head to Mina
Bosnian
Muslim walks to Makkah for Haj
|
|
Picture of the Day |
 |
Hundreds of thousands of white-clad believers, in buses, cars
and on foot and all of them chanting “Labbaik Allahumma
Labbaik” (“Here I am, O Allah, here I am”), began their trek
last night to the nearby tent city of Mina in the first leg of
the annual pilgrimage.
(Photo: SPA) |
|
|
|
|
|
|