Akshardham attack: POTA court acquits remaining 2 accused

Shaukatullah Ghori (left) and Majid Patel in Ahmedabad on Friday. (Express Photo: Javed Raja)

A special Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) court on Friday acquitted the remaining two accused in the Akshardham temple terror attack case, three weeks after the Supreme Court let off six accused for want of evidence. The two accused were in the jail for the past five years since their arrest.

Special POTA court Judge Geeta Gopi ordered acquittal of Mohammad Umarji alias Majid Patel and Hafiz Kasuri alias Shaukatullah Ghori, who were arrested by Ahmedabad’s Detection of Crime Branch in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Ghori was serving as a muezzin in a mosque in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who was accused for raising funds and attended meeting in Riyadh and Hyderabad where the alleged conspiracy was hatched for the attack. Ghori is the bother of Farhatullah, an alleged hardcore militant and wanted in other terror related cases including Akshardham.

Umarji, a resident of Bharuch, was chargesheeted for providing funds to the accused conspirators which he allegedly received through hawala racket. Umarji’s brother-in-law, Asif V Patel, said outside the court that the whole case led to a disaster in Umarji’s family. “Relationship broke as people in the community suspected him as a terrorist. The damage has been done. The five years lost in the jail would not come back. However, we don’t have complaints against the police,” Patel said.

A Supreme Court bench on May 16 had acquitted six accused, who had been convicted by the sessions court and the Gujarat High Court in 2010.

SC refused to rely on the evidence produced by the prosecution. During the hearing, the prosecution had referred to the SC judgment and said that it had refused to rely on Bhavnagari’s statement and rejected the conspiracy charge against the accused. On September 24, 2002, terror attack on Askshardham temple in Gandhinagar claimed more than 30 lives.

Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/akshardham-attack-pota-court-acquits-remaining-2-accused/

Homecoming after 11 years for these Akshardham attack “Terrorists”

Eleven years ago to the day on Tuesday, Sulaiman Bhai Ajmeri’s wife pleaded with the Gujarat Police that her husband was an innocent mechanic and not a terrorist involved in the attack on the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat.

Each time during the 11 years Mr. Sulaiman remembered his wife’s desperate attempts to prove his innocence, he broke down. But on Tuesday, he looked calm and composed after the Supreme Court ordered that all the six convicted by the lower court, including Sulaiman, be freed.

Two fidayeens sprayed bullets from their Ak-56 rifles and used hand grenades to kill 33 persons and injured another 86 before at Akshardham Temple before being killed by NSG commandos on September 25, 2002. The six members of minority community were charge-sheeted. A trial court had awarded death sentence to three of them, life imprisonment to two and 10-year imprisonment to remaining man.

While acquitting the accused, the Apex Court pulled up the Gujarat Police for framing “innocent” people in the case and accused the then Gujarat Home Minister of non-application of mind” in granting sanction to prosecute the six under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

Mr. Sulaiman got the news of his acquittal on the day the Modi wave was sweeping the country.

“My family was ostracized by society. Only a few gathered the courage to support me for they knew the real Sulaiman — a poor mechanic who worked with his father to make ends meet,” he said on Tuesday, during an interaction with the media here while describing about his ordeal as a “dreaded terrorist”.

Sulaiman said the only hope for “terrorists” like him and his five co-accused was the judiciary, while explaining how the Apex court ordered that the Gujarat police had failed to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt and their confessional statements were invalid to prove their involvement in the terror strike.

Mufti Abdul Qayum, whose death sentence by the trial court in Gujarat was quashed by the Apex court last week, recounted how he was forced to sign the confessional statement prepared by the police under coercion.

“Torture and coercion”

“The police tortured and forced me to write the letters. They claimed the letters were found from the pockets of the fidayeen killed during the attack. But the Supreme Court noticed that the letters were clean, not torn, or soiled/stained with blood or soil — which was highly unnatural and improbable as the terrorists’ bodies were covered with blood and mud, and their clothes had multiple tears and holes due to the bullets,” Mr. Qayyum recounted.

Mr. Qayyum and the others of what they call “victims of State terror” will move to the Supreme Court for compensation for the precious 11 years of their lives that were “wasted in most inhumane manner”.

Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Mulana Syed Arshad Madani, the organisation that helped the six of them, told The Hindu: “The media play a negative role by dubbing arrests of the Muslims as big breakthroughs in terror cases. And when acquittal happens, no one covers it. No one is bothered that they have been acquitted after 11 years.”

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/homecoming-after-11-years-for-these-akshardham-attack-terrorists/article6032120.ece

Hindu Vahini’s involvement case thrown in SIMI’s basket to further the ban.

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,

Hyderabad: Security agencies have once again landed in awkward moment with their consistent maneuver to maintain ban over Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Andhra Pradesh police while deposing before a UAPA tribunal turned a Hindu Vahini attached communal violence instigation case into a SIMI proscribing justification.

On 8th April 2012 communal clashes had erupted in Madanapet and Kurmaguda areas of Hyderabad after cow legs were found hanging on Hanuman temple gate. A SIT formed to investigate the case arrested five men belonging to the right wing militant group Hindu Vahini, who according to the police desecrated the temple to create communal clashes and to gain from polarization.

Since getting banned in Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in 2001, SIMI alleged to be an Islamist fundamentalist group by the Ministry of Home Affairs faced seven ban extensions on Government notifications. According to the provision of UAPA the ban has to be proved by a sitting High Court judge. Every tribunal except in 2008 upheld the ban on SIMI.

The new tribunal headed by Delhi High Court Judge Suresh Kait is formed after fresh notification from Government was issued extending ban on SIMI. The tribunal began its hearing from March this year and already completed proceedings in Kerala, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The tribunal proceedings were held at Ranga Reddy district collectorate office in Hyderabad on May 21st and 22nd. In the first day of proceeding Madhusudan Reddy DIG Counter Intelligence cell deposed before the tribunal.

Mr. Reddy in his affidavit gave reference to Darsgah Jihadt o Shahadat, Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Shair-e-Islam, Thereek-e-Galba-e-Islam, Wahdat-e-Islami and Al Ummah and their activities supporting ban on SIMI.

When defense counsel Advocate Ashok Agarwal pointed out that none of those organizations mentioned in affidavit are banned by any authority, DIG Counter Intelligence showed lack of knowledge. Later when official list of banned organizations were summoned by the judge it was found that none of the mentioned organization was banned in Andhra Pradesh. But Mr. Madhusudan Reddy testified before the tribunal that all those organizations mentioned are involved in anti-national activities and are inter-related and have links with SIMI which police have information from intelligence ‘secret reports’.

On the first day of the proceedings police presented cases from 2007 which were already been discussed in previous 2010 and 2012 tribunals.

On the second day of the hearing police tried to present the latest case to weight their argument that SIMI is still involved in unlawful activities while operating clandestinely. Inspector Koteshwara Rao of Madanapet police station deposed before the tribunal on Kurmaguda communal violence of 2012 of Cr.No 66 to 83/2012 and Cr.No. 126,128,132 and 133/ 2012 which were described in police affidavit as SIMI cases.

Local police which investigated the case before it was handed over to SIT did arrest three Muslim youths for allegedly participating in stone pelting during communal clashes. Those youngsters were described as SIMI members and whole incident was given a color of SIMI orchestrated plan.

Advocate Ashok Agarwal during his cross examination with Inspector Koteshwara Rao questioned whether any of those accused who are presented as SIMI members were charged with UAPA on which Inspector replied in negative.

During cross examination Mr. Rao was made to describe the events which led to violence in which he conceded that violence were conspire by Hindu right wing members by desecrating temple, he also accepted that charge-sheet has been filed against those Hindu youths involved in this case.

He also accepted that both communities indulged in stone pelting after communal clashes broke out. In spite of accepting the chronology of the events which pointed out towards the hand of Hindu Vahini in the violence police maintained its stand that three accused Muslim youths in this case has relations with SIMI and claim to have basis to connect those accused with the banned organization. Inspector Rao testified that information and antecedents of those accused were collected from the earlier police records.

Defense counsel Mr. Ashok Agarwal commenting on police stand told TCN, “Name of SIMI is interpolated to further the ban. Four cases were registered in 2012 pertaining to stone pelting, it was clear that it was communal tension and violence for which cases were registered and persons from both sides were charged. Those three Muslims were stated to be members of SIMI, even if we assume that it was correct it is not the basis of continuing the ban on SIMI, the Government has to show the activity about which they are reporting was done by SIMI or its members were part of conscious activity on behalf of organization.”

Source:http://twocircles.net/2014may29/hindu_vahini%E2%80%99s_involvement_case_thrown_simi%E2%80%99s_basket_further_ban.html#.U4n2qnKSx5u

अक्षरधाम: 'मेरा नाम सुरेश, रमेश या ... होता तो ये नहीं होता'

अंकुर जैन

अहमदाबाद से, बीबीसी हिंदी डॉटकॉम के लिए

 गुरुवार, 29 मई, 2014 को 12:09 IST तक के समाचार

मुमताज़ बानो अब कभी नहीं मुस्कराती हैं. घरवालों ने उनको पिछले 11 सालों में कभी हँसते हुए नहीं देखा और उन्हें मुमताज़ का एक ही भाव समझ आता है. वो रो रही हैं ये बात घरवालों को उनके आंसू से ही पता लगती है क्योंकि उन्हें लकवा मार गया है.

अहमदाबाद के दरियापुर इलाक़े में कभी वह अपने बड़े बेटे सलीम शेख की प्रशंसा करते नहीं थकती थीं. आख़िर उसने सऊदी अरब जाकर दर्ज़ी का काम करके पैसा कमाया और अपनी दो बहनों की शादी करवाई, अहमदाबाद में मकान ख़रीदा, अपने बच्चे ज़ैद को इंग्लिश स्कूल में डाला और फिर वह हर महीने घर पैसा भी भेजते थे.

संबंधित समाचार

• 'देश के क़ानून के भरोसे रहा जेल में ज़िंदा'
• 'एक ही समुदाय के लोग क्यों पकड़े जाते हैं?'
• कश्मीर में 'मोदी सरकार को लेकर आशंकाएं'

इससे जुड़ी ख़बरें

टॉपिक

• भारत

लेकिन उस दिन, क़रीब 11 साल पहले, मुमताज़ ने बेटे के लिए खीर बनाई थी. सलीम छुटियां ख़त्म कर सऊदी अरब वापस जाने की तैयारियां कर रहे थे. तभी घर के दरवाज़े पर दस्तक हुई और सलीम को कोई बुलाने आया.

क्लिक करें('देश के क़ानून के भरोसे रहा जेल में ज़िंदा')

लेकिन सलीम जब गए तो वापस लगभग 11 सालों बाद लौटे. वो 17 मई को घर वापस लौटे हैं.

इतने दिनों में बहुत कुछ बदल चुका है. अब घर फिर से किराये का है, ज़ैद अब उर्दू स्कूल में जाता है. मुमताज़ नहीं जानती कि यह सब उनके साथ क्यों हुआ, लेकिन सलीम कहते हैं कि शायद इस देश में मुसलमान होकर जन्म लेना कभी-कभी गुनाह हो जाता है.

प्रताड़ना

वो कहते हैं, "मेरा नाम अगर सुरेश, रमेश या महेश होता तो मेरे साथ यह कभी होता?" सलीम को अक्षरधाम मंदिर हमले मामले में गुजरात पुलिस ने पकड़ा था और उन्हें लश्कर-ए-तैयबा और जैशे मोहम्मद का सदस्य बताया गया था.

24 सितंबर, 2002 को दो हमलावरों ने अक्षरधाम मंदिर के भीतर एके-56 राइफ़ल से गोलियां बरसाकर 30 से अधिक लोगों की हत्या कर दी थी और क़रीब 80 को घायल कर दिया था. इस मामले में आठ लोगों को गिरफ़्तार किया गया था, जिनमें से छह को आरोप मुक्त कर दिया गया है जबकि दो पर अभी मुकदमा चल रहा है.

सलीम शेख क्लिक करेंसऊदी अरब के रियाद शहर में एक शोरूम में दर्ज़ी का काम किया करते थे. उन्होंने कहा, "पुलिस ने मुझे 29 दिन अवैध तरीक़े से हिरासत में रखा और इस दौरान इतना पीटा कि आज भी मेरे पाँव कांपते हैं. जैसे कोई धूप में चलकर आया हो उस तरह की जलन होती है. अहमदाबाद क्राइम ब्रांच में 400-500 डंडे एक साथ मेरे पाँव के तलवे पर मरते थे. उस वक़्त मेरी पाँव की इन उंगली फ्रैक्चर भी हो गयी."

सलीम को इस मामले में पोटा कोर्ट ने आजीवन कारवास की सज़ा सुनाई थी जिससे गुजरात उच्च न्यायालय ने बरक़रार रखा.

उन्होंने कहा, "मेरे कूल्हे पर आज भी 11 साल पुरानी मार के निशान मौजूद है. वह मंज़र याद आता है तो दिल दहल जाता है कि वापसी में भी हमारे साथ ऐसा न हो."

'कौन से केस में जेल जाएगा'

सलीम ने कहा, "मुझे क्राइम ब्रांच ले जाने के बाद पुलिस ने मेरे बारे से पूछा कि मैं सऊदी अरब में क्या करता हूँ और मेरे दोस्त कौन है? मुझे कहा गया की यह जाँच मेरे पासपोर्ट की कोई ख़राबी की वजह से है. पर फिर मुझे मारना शुरू किया. मुझे कोई इल्म ही नहीं था कि वे मुझे क्यों मार रहे हैं."

"यह सब इसलिए कि मैं मुसलमान हूँ. कुछ लोग हमारी कौम में ख़राब होंगे और कुछ लोग किसी और कौम में. मैं तो ख़ुद टेररिज़्म के ख़िलाफ़ हूँ और इस देश पर उतना ही गर्व करता हूँ जितना कोई और. मैं मानता हूँ कि भारत देश का ही क़ानून ऐसा है कि देर से सही आपको इंसाफ ज़रूर मिलता है. हाँ पर मैंने इसकी बड़ी क़ीमत चुकाई है."

सलीम शेख

वो आगे बताते हैं, "फिर एक सीनियर अफ़सर ने मुझे बुलाया और पूछा सलीम कौन से केस में जेल जाएगा, हरेन पंड्या, अक्षरधाम या 2002 दंगे. मुझे तो इन तीन के बारे में कुछ ज़्यादा पता भी नहीं था. मैं 1990 से सऊदी में था और जब घर आता तब बस इनके बारे कभी बात होती. मेरे पास मार खाने की बिलकुल ताक़त नहीं बची थी और मैं जैसा वह कहते वैसा करता था."

उन्होंने कहा, "मैंने तो बाक़ी अभियुक्तों को भी पहली बार जेल में देखा."

सलीम पर आरोप लगा था कि वह सऊदी में भारतीय मुसलमानों को इकट्ठा करके उन्हें 2002 क्लिक करेंगोधरा दंगे और अन्य भारत विरोधी वीडियो दिखाते थे और फिर उनसे पैसा लेकर भारत में आंतकवादी गतिविधियों के तहत अक्षरधाम हमले को फाइनेंस करते थे.

'पुलिस की मनगढंत स्टोरी'

वो कहते हैं, "मैं पुलिस की मनगढंत स्टोरी में फिट बैठ रहा था. सऊदी में रहने वाला था और अहमदाबाद पैसे भेजा करता था. मैंने 2002 दंगों के बाद एक रिलीफ कैंप में अनाज और पानी की मदद करने के लिए 13,000 रूपए ज़कात के तौर पर दिए थे. बस उसी से शायद में पुलिस की नज़र में आया. वर्ना मैंने जो कभी सिग्नल तोड़ने का भी गुनाह नहीं किया तो फिर इतने सारे लोगों को मारने का आरोप. पिछले 11 साल इस कलंक के साथ मैंने हर पल दिल पर पत्थर रखकर बिताए."

अपने परिवार की तकलीफ़ों के बारे में सलीम कहते हैं, "हमारा मकान बिक गया, छोटे भाई को परिवार चलाने के लिए अपनी पढ़ाई छोड़नी पड़ी, मेरे बच्चे अंग्रेजी स्कूल से उर्दू स्कूल में आ गए. अब क्लिक करेंगुजरात में उर्दू का कोई उपयोग नहीं. मेरी बेटी जो उस वक़्त चार महीने की थी आज छठी कक्षा में है और मुझसे अभी थोड़ा डरती है और अब अम्मी बिस्तर पर है."

वो बताते हैं, "यह सब इसलिए कि मैं मुसलमान हूँ. कुछ लोग हमारी कौम में ख़राब होंगे और कुछ लोग किसी और कौम में. मैं तो ख़ुद टेररिज़्म के ख़िलाफ़ हूँ और इस देश पर उतना ही गर्व करता हूँ जितना कोई और. मैं मानता हूँ कि भारत देश का ही क़ानून ऐसा है कि देर से सही आपको इंसाफ़ ज़रूर मिलता है. हाँ पर मैंने इसकी बड़ी क़ीमत चुकाई है."

सलीम के छोटे भाई इरफ़ान कहते हैं, "भाई को हिरासत में लेने के कुछ ही महीनों के बाद माँ को हार्ट अटैक आया और उन्हें लकवा मार गया. फिर वह जब भी भाई की तस्वीर देखती या अख़बार में उसके नाम के साथ आंतकवादी शब्द देखती तो पूरे दिन रोती रहती. उसने कई दिनों तक तो खाना छोड़ दिया था और रोजे रखती थीं."

इरफ़ान उस वक़्त 18 साल के थे.

'कोई है जो हमें आगे नहीं आने दे रहा'

जेल से निकलने के बाद सलीम इन दिनों अपने लिए एक दुकान ढूंढ रहे हैं. उन्होंने कहा, "मेरे पास वक़्त बहुत कम है कि मैं अपनी बिखरी हुई ज़िंदगी भी समेट सकूं. अहमदाबाद में अब एक छोटी सी दुकान किराये पर लेकर वापस सिलाई का काम शुरू करूँगा. दुनिया बहुत आगे बढ़ गई है. मैं और मेरे बच्चे बहुत पीछे रह गए."

सलीम अब अहमदाबाद के जूहापुरा इलाक़े में रहते हैं.

वो कहते हैं, "भारत को अब बदलना चाहिए. मैंने एक मुसलमान परिवार में जन्म अपनी पसंद से नहीं लिया था. तो फिर भेदभाव क्यों. अब हमें भी मुख्यधारा में शामिल करना चाहिए. भारत आगे बढ़े उसकी ख़ुशी हमें भी उतनी ही होती है. पर कोई है जो हमें नज़र नहीं आ रहा और वह हमें पीछे रखना चाहता है."

सलीम कहते हैं, "जैसे मेरे पिछले साल गए, ऐसे और किसी के न जाए. हमें जेल में शाम को छह बजे कोठरी में बंद कर दिया जाता था इसलिए मैंने आकाश में तारे पिछले 11 साल से नहीं देखे थे. अब खुले आकाश के नीचे दिल की धड़कन फिर सुनाई दे रही है और मैं आंतकवादी नहीं हूँ इस बात का सुकून है वरना इतनी मार और जेल की कोठरी के भीतर खुद पर से यकीन उठ गया था."

सलीम के वकील खालिद शेख कहते हैं, "सलीम को 29 दिन तक ग़ैरक़ानूनी हिरासत में रखा था और उनके शरीर पर आज भी मार के निशान मौजूद हैं. उसे मारकर और धमकाकर उसका कबूलनामा लिया गया था और यह बात सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने मानी."

(बीबीसी हिंदी का एंड्रॉयड मोबाइल ऐप डाउनलोड करने के लिए क्लिक करेंयहां क्लिक करें. आप ख़बरें पढ़ने और अपनी राय देने के लिए हमारे क्लिक करेंफ़ेसबुकपन्ने पर भी आ सकते हैं और क्लिक करेंट्विटर पर फ़ॉलो भी कर सकते हैं.)

source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/india/2014/05/140529_akshardham_accused_series2_salim_sheikh_vs.shtml?ocid=socialflow_facebook

The Muslim Question: Stories of false terror. (A Compilation of cases by Tahelka)

On March 25, 2013, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde promised fast-track courts to try Muslim citizens accused of terrorist activities. Even as a stated intent, this is a watershed moment in the battle to secure justice for hundreds of innocent Muslims rotting in prisons despite a complete lack of evidence. Since 2001, when SIMI, a radical Muslim students’ outfit, was banned, young Muslim boys have been arrested as a cynical default mode, prejudged and condemned by the media, public and security establishment even before trials could begin. The poisonous idea that “Every Muslim is not a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim” had seeped into the country’s consciousness. No one was interested in the facts.
This began to change substantially in August 2008, when Tehelka began to publish a series of in-depth investigations into such cases. The colossal scale of abuse and injustice was brought into the public domain for the first time. Over the last five years, Tehelka’s reporters, Ashish Khetan, Ajit Sahi, Rana Ayyub, Harinder Baweja, Baba Umar, Imran Khan, Brijesh Pandey, G. Vishnu and Zahid Rafiq have exposed hundreds of such cases. Here is a compendium of this reportage. Tehelka’s pathbreaking coverage on the subject has undoubtedly changed the discourse on counterterrorism in India. But the battle for justice will remain unfinished until all the accused who are innocent are absolved of false charges, rehabilitated and compensated for their terrible suffering. And the guilty get punished.

 

 

The fight for Muslims is fundamental for the survival of our democracy

SOME YEARS ago, at a TEHELKA press conference, a young Muslim man walked up to TEHELKA Editor Tarun Tejpal and held his hand in deep gratitude. “If it had not been for your journalists, we would long have picked up the gun. Your work gives us hope, Sir,” he said. “You help us believe we belong to this country.”
It was one of those rare moments of vindication journalists live for. The young man’s father, a respected maulvi, was falsely incarcerated then. We had just written his story. He would be acquitted a few years later.  Read More>

~Tehelka Coverage~

EXPOSÉ: The SIMI Fictions
In a crucial investigation over three months, Editor-at-Large Ajit Sahi tracked the SIMI fictions across 11 cities —Trivandrum, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Udaipur, Bhopal, Mumbai, Delhi, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad and Gorakhpur. His findings are alarming and distressing. They demand urgent introspection and corrective action.  Read More>
In The Words Of A Zealot…
ON 18 DECEMBER 2010, a team of CBI sleuths escorted an elderly Bengali man Naba Kumar Sarkar, 59 — popularly known as Swami Aseemanand — from Tihar jail to the Tis Hazari court in Delhi, where he was produced before metropolitan magistrate Deepak Dabas. Aseemanand is the key accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast that killed nine people. This was his second court appearance in a span of little over 48 hours. On 16 December, Aseemanand had requested the magistrate to record his confession about his involvement in a string of terror attacks. He stated that he was making the confession without any fear, force, coercion or inducement. Read More>
An Angry Hall Of Fall Guys. And Unfair Arrests
A dangerous prejudice had slipped into the Indian criminal justice system: if there was a blast, a Muslim was behind it. For this, these 32 Muslims had to pay for blasts done by Hindutva extremists. Ashish Khetan reports.
Read More >

Chilling Confession

The Gujarat Police took quick credit for arresting the masterminds behind the July 2008 blasts in Ahmedabad. Rana Ayyub tracks the police’s star witness to find he has been tortured into falsely implicating the ‘masterminds’. An exclusive report
Read More >

Malegaon Files

The blasts chargesheet is silent on the role of other right-wing groups, says Rana Ayyub
Read More >

Deceptive Piety

Is Goa blast accused Sanatan Sanstha merely a harmless religious organisation or a dangerous cult that will stop at nothing? Rana Ayyub finds out.
Read More >

Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah Called Cops Arrested For Killing Tulsi Prajapati

Rana Ayyub gets hold of crucial call records on which the CBI is building its case.
Read More >

BREAKTHROUGH EXPOSÉ: So Why Is Narendra Modi Protecting Amit Shah?

‘The calls made by the minister are not part of official decorum. Their frequency is unnatural and uncommon in nature.’ — Gujarat CID report on Amit Shah’s calls to encounter cops  Read More >

First On Tehelka: Amit Shah In The Dock

Former Home Minister Amit Shah will be questioned by the CBI between July 28 and July 30 in Sabarmati Jail. The CBI has obtained permission for the interrogation to be recorded on camera – to guard against future retractions. Tehelka first retrieved the call records that implicated Shah in the encounter killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Kauser Bi.  Read More >

Malegaon. Mecca Masjid. Ajmer Sharif. Why Are Tapes Implicating Ultra Hindutva Outfits In Terror Blasts Gathering Dust?

 Tehelka has accessed 37 audio tapes, two videos and several witness statements that cast further light on the Malegaon blasts case of 2008  Read More >

Together, They Ran The Home Ministry. If Amit Shah Is In The Dock, Modi Cannot Remain Unscathed

SINCE THE sensational arrest of Gujarat junior Home Minister Amit Shah last week, the BJP has been crying hoarse about a Congress conspiracy; about the CBI being a “Congress bureau of investigation”; and of how the case against Shah is built on legally flimsy grounds.  Read More >

The Unturned Stone

The Malegaon blast probe threw up 37 audiotapes in which ultra-Hindu groups plot terror attacks. These tapes expose a shocking nexus between Military Intelligence men and the outfits. Two years later, why is this still unexplored, asks Rana Ayyub  Read More >

The Terror. The Threat. The Twist

Rana Ayyub examines the phenomenon of the Indian Mujahideen.
Read More >

Hoisting An Old Trick

The BJP in Karnataka is fanning communal fears to consolidate the Hindu vote, reports Imran Khan
Read More >

Who Will Pay For Injustice Done To These Nine Men?

ASHISH KHETAN exposes the elaborate and cynical charade of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad to implicate a bunch of Muslim men in terrorist strikes aimed at members of their own community
Read More >

Not Just A Confession. Forensic Evidence Piles Up Against Hindutva Terror

Over the past three years the evidence gathered by the agencies against a team of RSS pracharaks and lunatic Hindutva groups like Abhinav Bharat and Jai Vande Matram is compelling
Read More >

Ghost Of Fake Encounters Comes Back To Haunt Gujarat

A CBI progress report on the four fake encounters of 2004-2007 in Gujarat establishes what TEHELKA has been saying all along. Now, senior policemen and IB officials face arrests in these cases, says Rana Ayyub
Read More >

Dead Man Talking

It’s not just Ishrat Jahan. Rana Ayyub accesses exclusive intelligence inputs and pieces together a damning trail on another encounter in Gujarat. The story of Sadiq Jamal’s death raises uncomfortable questions the government might find difficult to answer.
Read More >

More Questions No Answers
IN MORE placid times, Motilal Nagar, No. 2 would be just another by lane in one just another one of Mumbai’s suburbs — one with a predominantly Muslim population. However, it has been attracting continuous media attention for the last couple of months ever since one of its residents — 37-yearold Faheem Ansari — was taken into custody by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch for his role in the terror attacks of 26/11.
Read More>

How Do You Keep The Faith?
TEHELKA BEGAN 2011 with the publication of Swami Asimananda’s stunning confession (In the words of a zealot, by Ashish Khetan, 15 January), which not only changed the terror discourse in the country but also the lives of seven Muslim men who were arrested after the 2006 blasts that took 37 lives in Malegaon, Maharashtra. Last week, six of them, hailing from different strata of Muslim society, returned home to a rousing welcome after getting bail. But the family of Mohammad Zahid, the poorest of the lot, will perhaps have to wait longer.
Read More >

 ‘I’m Jobless. I Can’t Start A Business Also Because Friends Refuse Me Loans’
SYED WASIF HAIDER, a resident of Kanpur, UP, was jailed for eight years, before the courts finally acquitted him of all charges on 14 August 2009. As a part of the delegation meeting the president on 18 November, he had only one thing to say: “Please stop the media from defaming me. I was declared innocent in 2009. Yet, the local media drags my name in whenever there’s a blast. I’m facing a social boycott. Children in the locality don’t play with a ‘terrorist’s’ daughters. Relatives feel police will hound them for visiting me.”
Read More >
From Death To Acquittal, A Journey Of Two Men
THEY HAD been handed out the harshest sentence the penal code allows — death. But on 22 November, 16 years after they were charged, the Delhi High Court set aside their death sentences, acquitting Mahmud Ali Bhat, 43, and Mirza Nissar Hussain, 32, of any involvement in the 1996 Lajpat Nagar bomb blasts.
Read More >

‘My Family Saw A Disorder In Me, But That Had Become My Order’
SYED MAQBOOL SHAH of Kashmir has a similar story of injustice and wrongful incarceration. In the bylanes of Srinagar’s Lal Bazaar, Shah’s two-storey decrepit house in Jan Mohalla has become a wellknown structure. Those looking for direction to this house are guided till the gate.
Read More >

‘Justice Made Me Realise That I Was Guilty Until Proven Innocent’
FOURTEEN YEARS is a long time. Wiping away the tears streaming down his cheeks, Mohammad Aamir recounts his experience of when he stepped out of the Rohtak Jail on 9 January 2012.
Read  More >

Terror That Wasn’t
THE SPECIAL CELL of the Delhi Police was formed in 1986 as a counter-terrorism force. It shot into prominence in the late 1990s, claiming to have killed many terrorists and to have solved several cases. In time, some of its officers began to figure in extortion cases and dubious encounters. Tellingly, over the last four months, lower courts in Delhi have acquitted nine “terrorists” arrested by the Special Cell. Four such “terrorists” were arrested after an encounter in southwest Delhi in March 2005. Police claimed they had averted a major terrorist attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun. Five years later, all four men were acquitted. Brijesh Pandey profiles the four terrorists who never were.
Read More >

The Storyteller Becomes The Story
ON 13 FEBRUARY, Syed Ahmed Kazmi was sitting in television news studios as an expert on Iran soon after the bombing of the car carrying the Israel Defence Attaché’s wife in New Delhi. Kazmi, who had widely reported on West Asia, fearlessly spoke his mind, rubbishing Israel’s claim that the attack was masterminded by Iran.
Read  More >

‘I Was Picked Up Because I Lived In The Same House As The Other Accused’
Muthi-Ur-Rahman Siddique, a journalist with the Deccan Herald in Bengaluru, was arrested last year, along with 14 others, in an alleged plot to assassinate prominent Right-leaning journalists and politicians in Karnataka. The National Investigating Agency (NIA) took over the case from the Karnataka police two months ago and dropped charges against Siddique and a co-accused, Yusuf Nalband. Siddique was released on 25 February. In a conversation with Imran Khan, Siddique shares his six-month ordeal behind the bars, and how the tag of a ‘mastermind’ affected his life and family.
Read More>

Tihar jail has 53 Kashmiris. Like Dar, most were framed
GHULAM MOHIDEEN Dar suffered for no cause, no idea, no movement — just for being a Kashmiri. A thought that haunts him as he adjusts to new realities of life after being freed from a long incarceration. Dar contested the 2004 Parliamentary election from the Pulwama-Islamabad constituency as an independent candidate and later joined the Congress. He was also a dealer in Gulnar tea, and frequently came to Delhi on business. On one such trip on 15 June 2005, Dar met the then minister of state for defence and also sought an appointment with the President.
Read More >

‘I Was Forbidden From Receiving Religious Books In Jail’
Forty-nine-year-old Anjum Zamarud Habib, founding member of the Hurriyat Conference, was falsely implicated under POTA. Habib’s memoir Prisoner No 100 is a rare and shocking account of a tortured five years in Tihar jail and a critique of the judicial system. She talks to Yamini Deenadayalan on a visit to Delhi (a place she “never feels free in and fears”). Edited excerpts.
Read More >

How Police Hid The Truth For 15 Years

In 1996, four people were bundled into a police van. One escaped, while there’s still no news of the other three. Baba Umar travels to Bhaderwah to expose the cover-up
Read More >

‘I Don’t Feel Any Purpose In Life Now’

Mirza Iftikhar Hussain, 40
Namchebal, Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir by Baba Umar
 Read More >

Came For Work, Got Sentenced Instead

Shakeel Ahmad Khan, 50
Hazratbal, Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir by Baba Umar 
Read More >

Life In Jail Was Hell, It Is No Better Outside

Syed Maqbool Shah, 32
Lal Bazaar, Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir by Baba Umar 
Read More >

Grounded For 5 Years, Will He Ever Fly Again?

Imran Ahmad Kirmani, 29
Nelipora hamlet, Handwara Jammu & Kashmir by Baba Umar 
Read More >

‘I Was Forbidden From Receiving Religious Books In Jail’

Forty-nine-year-old Anjum Zamarud Habib, founding member of the Hurriyat Conference, was falsely implicated under POTA. Habib’s memoir Prisoner No 100 is a rare and shocking account of a tortured five years in Tihar jail and a critique of the judicial system. She talks to Yamini Deenadayalan on a visit to Delhi (a place she “never feels free in and fears”). Edited excerpts.  Read More >

The War On Terror & Its Collateral Damage

Over 10 years in jail. For a crime they did not commit. Baba Umar on the Muslims whose lives became hell in false terror cases 
Read More >

‘I’m Jobless. I Can’t Start A Business Also Because Friends Refuse Me Loans’

Syed Wasif Haider
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh by Baba Umar  
Read More >

‘My Family Saw A Disorder In Me, But That Had Become My Order’

Syed Maqbool Shah
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh by Baba Umar  
Read More >

From Death To Acquittal, A Journey Of Two Men

The acquittal of two men on death row raises questions on the process of terror probes in India, says Baba Umar  
 Read More >

 

 

The war on terror & its collateral damage 

Tehelka Exposé helped in nailing Amit Shah 

  The CBI is now saying what Tehelka said then 

  ‘They just want Muslim boys to always be in jail’