NEW DELHI: "I am Jamil Masiullah from Malegaon, Maharashtra. I am the elder brother of Shabbir Masiullah. The police arrested my brother at 3.30am on August 3, 2006 from his house. He was given electric shocks on his private parts and acid was poured on his private parts, to make him confess that he was responsible for either the Malegaon or the Mumbai local train bomb blasts."
"I am Abdul Kareem from Hyderabad. I used to drive an autorickshaw before arrest. One day, police barged into my house and took me away. I was tortured, hit on the soles and other body parts with a rubber belt. I was asked what I knew about the Hyderabad bomb blasts. I answered that I did not know anything. But they were still forcing me either to admit to the crime or to speak about it.""I am Aftab Alam from UP. I am working in the Electric Supply Corporation of Kolkata. On Dec 27, 2007, I was arrested by UP police and aired as a mastermind terrorist responsible for bomb blasts on the Sharanjeevi Express and the Sankat Mochan temple of Varanasi. I was told that I was an area commander of HuJI and all the bomb blasts that took place in UP were conspired by me. I was beaten up whole night. I was constantly compelled to accept that my name was Mukhtar alias Raju from Bangladesh. I was allowed to wear jeans and T-shirt only in that cold weather and was beaten with a leather belt to give a confessional statement."
"I am Saleha Khatoon from Gujarat, Zahid Sheikh's sister. He had been accused of 26 July 2008 bomb blasts. The police asked him to come for some inquiry regarding mobile SIM cards. He went on his motorcycle and has not returned since then. My parents went to see him. They saw that he was unable to walk. He was severely tortured. We were allowed to meet him for two minutes only."
These are some chilling real life stories of police brutality, compiled in a publication called "What It Means To Be A Muslim In India Today". Based on the testimonies of dozens of victim families, the booklet, published by ANHAD (Act Now For Harmony and Democracy), is the first attempt to put together a graphic account of the torture and sustained discrimination suffered by Muslims in the shadow of repeated terrorist strikes over the past decade. The families had mustered up courage to speak of police harassment and judicial and administrative apathy in front of two tribunals organized by civil society groups in 2008 and 2009.
What comes through in story after story is the sense of helplessness and insecurity that has gripped the community in the wake of sweeping arrests of Muslim youths after every terrorist attack. It reflects what human rights activist Ram Punyani called in his foreword to the booklet "the infiltration of the communal mindset in the system".
The publication assumes significance following recent revelations about the involvement of Hindutva terror groups in some of the blasts that were blamed on the boys currently in prison.
A national meet of human rights activists and political leaders on Friday, at which the booklet was released, adopted a resolution calling for a fresh and objective investigation into all the terror attacks of the past two decades "without negating the possibility of the Hindutva involvement". The eleven-point resolution will be handed over to home minister P Chidambaram.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiat...3582_1_bomb-blasts-shabbir-masiullah-malegaon
"I am Abdul Kareem from Hyderabad. I used to drive an autorickshaw before arrest. One day, police barged into my house and took me away. I was tortured, hit on the soles and other body parts with a rubber belt. I was asked what I knew about the Hyderabad bomb blasts. I answered that I did not know anything. But they were still forcing me either to admit to the crime or to speak about it.""I am Aftab Alam from UP. I am working in the Electric Supply Corporation of Kolkata. On Dec 27, 2007, I was arrested by UP police and aired as a mastermind terrorist responsible for bomb blasts on the Sharanjeevi Express and the Sankat Mochan temple of Varanasi. I was told that I was an area commander of HuJI and all the bomb blasts that took place in UP were conspired by me. I was beaten up whole night. I was constantly compelled to accept that my name was Mukhtar alias Raju from Bangladesh. I was allowed to wear jeans and T-shirt only in that cold weather and was beaten with a leather belt to give a confessional statement."
"I am Saleha Khatoon from Gujarat, Zahid Sheikh's sister. He had been accused of 26 July 2008 bomb blasts. The police asked him to come for some inquiry regarding mobile SIM cards. He went on his motorcycle and has not returned since then. My parents went to see him. They saw that he was unable to walk. He was severely tortured. We were allowed to meet him for two minutes only."
These are some chilling real life stories of police brutality, compiled in a publication called "What It Means To Be A Muslim In India Today". Based on the testimonies of dozens of victim families, the booklet, published by ANHAD (Act Now For Harmony and Democracy), is the first attempt to put together a graphic account of the torture and sustained discrimination suffered by Muslims in the shadow of repeated terrorist strikes over the past decade. The families had mustered up courage to speak of police harassment and judicial and administrative apathy in front of two tribunals organized by civil society groups in 2008 and 2009.
What comes through in story after story is the sense of helplessness and insecurity that has gripped the community in the wake of sweeping arrests of Muslim youths after every terrorist attack. It reflects what human rights activist Ram Punyani called in his foreword to the booklet "the infiltration of the communal mindset in the system".
The publication assumes significance following recent revelations about the involvement of Hindutva terror groups in some of the blasts that were blamed on the boys currently in prison.
A national meet of human rights activists and political leaders on Friday, at which the booklet was released, adopted a resolution calling for a fresh and objective investigation into all the terror attacks of the past two decades "without negating the possibility of the Hindutva involvement". The eleven-point resolution will be handed over to home minister P Chidambaram.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiat...3582_1_bomb-blasts-shabbir-masiullah-malegaon
