Syed Imran Khan, 26, can’t sleep at night. When he finally slips into a fitful slumber, he sees hooded policemen approaching him with batons. Screaming ‘mat maro, mat maro,’ he wakes up bathed in sweat. Likewise, Abdul Raheem, a 30-year-old trader, shudders when he recalls the buzz of the electric wires which police used to give
repeated shocks to his genitals in a torture chamber where he was kept blindfolded for hours and days. Another youth, a Unani doctor, urinated blood after hours of torture only to have leering cop tell him, “What does it matter to a dying man?”
These are just three of the dozens of Muslim youth picked up and tortured by Hyderabad cops in their excessively zealous and lopsided investigation after the Mecca Masjid blast of May 18, 2007.
There was no sifting of evidence, no objective probe to find out who triggered the blast, just a blind latching on to the ‘Islamic terrorist’ tag and Gestapo-like operations in the dead of the night to round up bewildered and clueless youth from their beds.
Blindfolded, they were kept in isolated farm houses in the outskirts of the city. Chained and tortured for days together, the traumatised youth were finally forced to give confessional statements that they were behind the blasts.
Hyderabad’s own Guantanamo Bay camp was set up with the blessings of the top cops, some of whom personally ‘interrogated’ the youth.
But as the slogan of Satyameva Jayate emblazoned on the caps and shoulders of these senior cops indicates, truth did triumph at last. It has now become evident that the Muslim youth had nothing to do with the blast, which was the handiwork of a Hindu right wing outfit.
But truth became the biggest casualty in the initial investigation of the blast when cops acted in a brutal manner without even considering the illogical nature of their assumption that Muslim youth would trigger a blast in the Mecca Masjid.
The result was severe trauma for the youths and their families. Many of them lost their jobs, their good names, their academic career and even marriages. And they continue to be haunted by those dark days of torture. They are living a nightmare. Who will pay for the mindless ravaging of their innocence?
‘They put a gun to my head’
I was a witness when the Gujarat police shot dead my friend Saleem Mujahid in front of the DGP’s office in October 2004. Since then I have been under the police scanner.
Shahed Bilal is from our locality and we know him since childhood. When the police asked me if I knew Bilal I said ‘yes’, and this answer changed my life. The police implicated me in a case of conspiracy. Is it a crime that I am from the same locality as Shahed Bilal?
After the Mecca Masjid blast in 2007, the police asked me to visit the Special Investigation Cell office in connection with the Saleem Mujahid case. They asked me who was behind Mecca Masjid blast. I told them it could be some right wing groups as no Muslim would do it. They released me.
But three months later they caught me again after the twin blasts in Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat. This time they tortured me in their camps in Premavatipet, and shifted me to three to four farmhouses.
I was produced in court on the false charge of conspiracy. They branded me as Bilal’s associate but the court acquitted me. Even after three years I suffer from several health problems (like recurrent severe headaches) due to the torture and narco-analysis test. The police detained me illegally for eight days. I spent six months in jail. I lost my job in the jewellery shop. I now work as an electrician.
The police continue to ask me whether I knew Viqar Ahmed. They came to me after some persons fired at policemen at Shah Ali Banda. I don’t know who Viqar is.
I was, however, a witness to the Mecca Masjid blast. I helped the injured but the police implicated me. They put a revolver on my temple and demanded that I confess to being involved in the blast.
‘18 months in jail, for no fault’
Syed Imran Khan, 26,
engineering student
Three days after the Mecca Masjid blast, on May 21, around 90 policeman surrounded my house at Hasmathpet in Bowenpally. I was about to turn in after dinner when they dragged me out saying that I and my uncle Shoaib Jagirdar from Jalna in Maharashtra, had conspired with one Nayeem alias Sameer, who was allegedly caught on the Bangladesh border.
I was just an ordinary boy doing my third year engineering. I played cricket and volleyball for my college. I was also working part-time as a phone banking officer for ICICI.
The cops booked two false cases against me: a conspiracy case and another for stocking RDX brought from Bangladesh. While I was acquitted by the court later, another case is pending against me.
The cops said that I knew how to transfer funds and I aided terrorists. They took me to a farmhouse in the city outskirts. Over the next nine to 10 days of illegal custody, they gave electric shocks on my private parts. They then released me stating I was innocent. But in June, they again subjected me to narco tests. Though the court gave permission for a single test, they conducted it twice. The second time they gave me an overdose of narcotics. Many police officials, including then joint CP Harish Kumar Gupta, were in the narco room.
They didn’t even give me a chance to speak. The police say that Nayeem had come with my uncle Jagirdar to our home for a meal. But I don’t know anything about him and his whereabouts.
Though I don’t have any links with any anti-social elements, I spent 18 months in jail. I have never seen RDX in my life, but the police claim I stocked 10 kg of the explosives. After the ordeal, representatives from the National Commission for Minorities visited us and I retook admission with much difficulty at Lords Institute of Engineering and Technology. But I still wake up at night shivering with fear. My family tells me that I cry in sleep, shouting ‘mat maro, mat maro’.
The police changed my image to that of a goon and everyone in my family suffered. I lost three years of my academic career. Advocate Muzafarulla Khan stood by me and helped me fight my case.
Though I lost faith in the police, I still have faith in the CBI. They were supportive and told me that I was innocent. The cops, who called me a terrorist, should call a press conference and attest that I was implicated in a false case.
‘Nobody wants to marry me’
Abdul Raheem,
30, provision store owner
On September 3, 2007 a police inspector called me up. I was an auto driver then. He asked me who had carried out the blast at Mecca Masjid. After the Lumbini Park blast, the police called me again. This time they took me to a camp in Gandipet.
When we reached, I saw they were beating several boys in the farmhouse. The police abused me, beat me with iron pipes and gave me electric shocks. There were around 40 people in the camp and in our room there were four or five of us but I am not certain as I was always blindfolded. I could hear others crying for help as the police tortured them.
I used to shiver when I heard the sound of their boots coming towards me. The electric shocks would make a buzz — like the electric bats used to kill mosquitoes. After five days in the camp I was taken to jail.
My marriage, which was scheduled at that time, was cancelled and after the ordeal no one wanted to give their daughter’s hand to me despite the fact that we had been staying in Malakpet locality for 20 years. After this episode we shifted to Chandrayangutta. Initially, there too no one wanted to marry me and with great difficulty could we convince them.
I am not a member of any organisation and there are no other cases against me. I spent five months in jail for no fault of mine and the court acquitted me. My mother by then had already suffered two strokes and I still suffer from health problems.
Compensation and action against cops
The traumatised victims of police torture in the Mecca Masjid blast case have approached court demanding compensation from the State government for the nightmarish experience they had to undergo. They are also seeking action against the guilty police personnel for ruining their lives and their careers and for causing unending distress to their families.
Under the law, the State government is liable to pay compensation to the victims of police excesses. Though the system is often seen as loaded against the helpless, there have been several instances wherein courts have granted compensation to the victims of police torture.
“We have filed a petition in the city civil court as per Law of Torts,” said senior advocate, Shafeeq Rahman Mahajir, who is fighting the case for the torture victims. “Our contention is that the police had put unnecessary blame on these innocent youth and their rights were violated at the instance of the State. So the State is liable to compensate them.”
The advocate said the demand was for Rs 20 lakh as compensation to each of 20 boys illegally detained and framed by the police. “We also asked for an unspecified amount for the mental trauma and dislocation suffered by the families,” said Mahajir. “We have urged court to recover the entire compensation amount from those who illegally detained the youth."
He said that the court should ideally attach the assets of police officers facing the charge of torture to teach them a lesson and to set an example for other cops. “We have cited a High Court order in an earlier case where Rs 32,000 per day was awarded as interim relief to those detained by the police illegally,” said the advocate. “Some of the boys from the city were detained in jail for 18 months in the Mecca Masjid case.”
The then city police commissioner, Mr Balwinder Singh, had written a letter to the National Minorities Commission stating that their investigation revealed that the youth picked up were not involved in the twin blasts. “This means the police merely leaked stories to the media that these youth were behind the blasts,” said Mr Mahajir.
Even in the narcoanalysis tests and confession report in a separate case of RDX smuggling, the police mentioned the Mecca Masjid blast case and alleged that the arrested youth were responsible for it.
The court is now awaiting the responses from the defendants — the government and police officers — in the case.
Reacting to the development, the former director general of police, Mr Pervaram Ramulu, cautioned the police to be alert while dealing with major cases such as blasts. “These youth can claim compensation under Law of Torts,” he said. “They have every right if it is found that the allegations made against them were unfounded. The police should act only when they have evidence and should not rush to conclusions."
Mr Ramulu added that superior officers should not put pressure on investigating officers to show results. “Investigations should run on scientific basis particularly in serious cases such as blasts, rapes and murders,” said the former DGP.
“Investigators must be doubly careful or the reputation and life of people will be damaged,” said another former DGP, Mr Swarnjit Sen, who added that such cases were rare and the Hyderabad police usually went about their probes in a scientific manner.
The former cops felt that police should have made more inquiries in the local area where the youth resided before rushing into action. Community elders in the locality should also be able to provide information when such youth are under police scanner.
They also observed that the government should provide compensation in such cases and should retain control of such investigations.
“If somebody is falsely accused he suffers irreparable damage, reputation and his social standing gets affected,” said the human rights advocate, Mr Lateef Khan. “Police in this case violated National Human Rights Commission and Supreme Court guidelines on arrest and detention. They targeted the entire Muslim community. Apart from paying compensation to victims, the government should bring the guilty policemen to book.”