The terror charge: Suspects, culprits and innocents

By Syed Akbar

Before April 2000 the one name the police used to chant after every violent
incident in Andhra Pradesh was that of suspected ISI agent Azam Ghori.
In the following five years, the police records witnessed the "terror regime"
of Muslim Defence Force leader Abdul Bari.
And the latest "bad man of terror" is Muhammad Shahed alias Bilal, a college
dropout whom the police accuse of masterminding the bomb blasts including
the one at the historic Mecca Masjid in May and the twin blast last week.
The police closed the history sheet of Ghori after he was killed in an
encounter in April 2000 and strangely enough chose not to link Bari with
terror incidents after they found the new suspect in Shahed a couple of years
ago.
Except for the encounter killing of Ghori and half a dozen ISI suspects in
the last one decade, neither the State nor the Hyderabad city police succeeded in
proving the "charge of terror" against those they had rounded up after terror
incidents. The police needle of suspicion simply points towards a host of
known suspects after every terror incident but improper investigation leads
the police to nowhere. The result is another round of terror activity,
death and destruction and the usual one more police list of same suspects.
The police came out with the name of Shahed soon after the Mecca Masjid
blast but failed to document the charge against him. Dozens of Muslim
youths from old city of Hyderabad were either arrested or taken into custody
and more than 100 days later the police are yet to chargesheet them for the
charge the youths were put behind the bars.
None of the suspects in the Mecca Masjid blast, still in custody, has been
charged with the actual blast at the masjid. Shoeb Jagirdar and Shaik Nayeem
alias Sameer of Maharashtra were rounded up for their alleged involvement
in the masjid blast but the police ended up framing fake passport cases
against them. Other suspects Abdul Sattar and Ibrahim were booked in
unrelated cases. Shoeb secured bail while others are still behind the bars.
As usual, within an hour of the twin bomb blast on August 25 senior police
officials vied with one another in announcing the name of Shahed and a list
of ISI-backed organisations holding them responsible for the terror act that
left 42 people dead and about 50 injured. The hurry with which the
investigating authorities jumped to the conclusion even before inspecting the
bomb sites and securing vital clues has led several Muslim and human rights
organisations to accused the police of acting with "preconceived notions"
against the principal minority community.
A dig into the past police records and court cases shows that a majority of
those arrested under "terror" charges had been acquitted. If at all they were
convicted, it was on the charge of murder or extortion. All those arrested by
the police on the charge of terror in AP Express, Humayunnagar and Abids
police stations and Secunderabad railway station bomb blast incidents walked
out to freedom with the police failing to prove the charge. Only Dr Jalees
Shakil Ansari was convicted, though in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast case.
After the Mecca Masjid and twin bomb blasts, the police have named pan-
Islamic outfits like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islamic, Jaish-
e-Mohammed, Lashker-e-Thoiba and Students Islamic Movement India.
Ironically, the police could not come out with concrete evidence to nail
these
organisations or their operatives in the State. Lopsided investigations based
on preconceived notions have often proved counterproductive for the State
and the city police. For instance, the AP High Court had rapped the State
Crime Investigation Department for booking "ISI cases" against some
Muslim youths without substantial evidence. The youths were let off but not
before their image was tarnished by the police and the media.
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen has been accused the police of "profiling"
Muslim youths as a source of disturbance, unrest and potential threat to the
security and safety. "The police simple weave stories of foreign Muslim
terrorist groups and their local support base to harass innocent youths. We
are against harassment of innocent youths. Let the police arrest the real ISI
activists instead of going after local youths just because they happen to be
Muslims," observes Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.
With the police failing to identify the real culprit in the Mecca Masjid
blast even three months after the incident and arrest/custody of about 200 Muslim
youths, Muslim elders feel that top police officials due to their
proximity to the Hindutva forces and for personnel promotions and benefits, are targeting
the community branding Muslims as terrorists having connections with
Pakistan's ISI.
"The police should not act with preconceived notions. They should be open
to all angles and the probe should be inclusive. Jumping to conclusions
without even beginning the investigation will send wrong signals and this
will only create a communal wedge between the Muslims and the Hindus.
The police should desist the tendency of pointing fingers at Muslims without
a thorough probe," says senior Muslim cleric Moulana Khalid Saifullah
Rahmani. The police on the other hand argue that they were not targeting any
particular community. "We are on the elimination process. We round up suspects and
zero in on the culprits. In the process some innocent people may have been
taken into custody. It's a routine process. We deal with Intelligence inputs
and data. We let off the innocent persons," city police commissioner
Balwindar Singh points out.
But human rights activists do not want to buy the argument of Balwindar
Singh. Says Prof SAR Geelani of Delhi University, "If the police are really
open minded, they will look for clues from other terror groups and not only
from Muslim bodies. The police and other premier investigating agencies are
infested with officers having RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP ideologies.  The
police jump to the conclusion immediately after a bomb blast, that it is the
handiwork of Muslims. They don't even think of the Bajrang Dal, RSS and
VHP as possible suspects. In fact they don't like to take these names," he
adds.
Shahed's father Abdul Wahed hits back at the police demanding that they
produce his son before court if he was involved. "Shahed left the house five
years ago and we have never seen or met him after that". He alleges that
Shahed is with the police and he could be killed any time.
The police handed over the Mecca Masjid case to the CBI. The case of
unexploded bomb is still with the local police. The MIM and other Muslim
organisations have accused that the local police had kept with it the case of
unexploded bomb only to harass Muslims youths by rounding them off at
"appropriate time".

Madarasas criticise midnight raids, say they do not indulge in illegal activities

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad: Managements of madarasas on Thursday accused the Congress government in the State of anti-Muslim stance after a police team raided a well-known Islamic seminary in the outskirts of the city late on Wednesday night.
Two more madarasas including a girl's seminary were raided on Thursday afternoon. The police, however, described the raids as a simple verification exercise.
A posse of policemen swooped on the 25-year-old Darul Uloom Hyderabad, managed by eminent Islamic scholar Moulana Hameeduddin Aquil Hussami, in the dead of night and conducted a virtual identification parade of students and teachers.
 Most of the students in the madarasa are below 14 years and several of them are orphans. The midnight swoop forced the Muslim clergy to denounce the police action as nothing short of  "terrorising the minority
community and branding Muslims as terrorists".
The police team returned on Thursday morning for verification of madarasa records as part of the "investigation" into the twin bomb blast in the city earlier this week. Incidentally, Moulana Aquil had
campaigned for the Congress during the last Assembly elections and shared dais with senior Congress leaders including Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy.
"Madarasa is nothing more than an educational institution where education is provided free. It is open to all. Anyone can visit any madarasa and verify for themselves about its activities. Raiding a madarasa in the dead of night will send wrong signals and create communal frenzy. The government is branding Muslims as terrorists and this will lead to ill-will between Hindus and Muslims. People of other communities will look at Muslims with suspicion if the police did not desist from such actions," Moulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani,
general secretary of the Deeni Madaris Board, told this correspondent.
The Madaris Board, an umbrella body of madarasas in the State, held an emergency meeting in the city on Thursday evening to denounce the "highhanded" action of the police. It said several young students are
traumatised by the presence of the police late in night.
Representatives of over three dozen top madarasas participated in the meeting and decided to call on Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy after the Friday congregation prayers to lodge their protest. They warned of severe Muslim backlash if the Congress government did not desist from actions that would brand Muslims as terrorists or supporters of terror groups.
Police on Thursday afternoon raided Darul Uloom Anwarul Huda at Kishanbagh and Jamia Ayesha Siddiqa Lil Banat, a girl's religious school at Misriganj, angering the Islamic clergy. The Madaris Board alleged that though madarasas were opening their records before the police, instances of midnight knocks had gone up in
old city.
The Board, comprising senior Islamic clergy some of international repute, wondered what had forced the police to swoop on the madarasas during ungodly hours when they could do so in the morning. "Madarasas create responsible and God-fearing citizens. No terrorist has ever been rounded up from a madarasa in India.
Even senior BJP leaders like LK Advani gave clean chit to Islamic seminaries. If we come across any anti-social or anti-national element, we will be the first ones to hand them over to the police. But looking at Muslims in general and madarasas in particular with suspicious eyed is not a healthy trend and this will have far reaching repercussions on the overall social fabric," Moulana Hameeduddin Aquil, who chaired the
meeting, said.