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".
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