How hyderabad police conspiracy failed to make Shoiab and Imran a "terrorist"

By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net

Hyderabad: At first glance one can think of him as a college student, or a smart marketing executive or perhaps a call center worker. But Imran Khan today is none of them. His calm demeanor and occasional smiles are just a façade behind which he tries to hide his internal turmoil and agony caused by the events of last 16 months.

another victim of police atrocity Shoaib Jagirdar with Imran Khan and
Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjadullah Khan at a media conference.

Imran, once a brilliant student of B.Tech in a Hyderabad based private college and a beacon of hope for his lower middle class family has passed through a hell and reduced to a shell of his former self.

"Even if I enjoy something good for a while, my mind suddenly goes back to the events of last few months, my smile vanishes and my mind goes numb", says Imran speaking in fluent English.

And his trauma and distress is not with out reason. Imran has suffered a hell and has returned. He is one of the four people, a court in Hyderabad acquitted in a terror related case. The 7th additional metropolitan magistrate threw out the charges of criminal conspiracy to wage war against the country and supplying RDX saying prosecution did not produce any evidence whatsoever to support its case.

Imran, his uncle (Phupha) Shoaib Jagirdar, and two other unconnected youth Abdul Majeed and Abdul Kaleem are now free following the court order but the fear of police trying to frame them in another case still haunts them.

Imran was among the dozens of Hyderabadi Muslim youth who were picked up by the police after the bomb blast in historic Mecca Masjid on May 18, 2007 and subsequent twin blasts in Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat in which more than 50 people had died.

"It was a few days after my uncle Shoaib Jagirdar was picked up from Jalna by Hyderabad police that police raided my house. As I was the eldest son of my family, they took me away to the Task Force office. My father, who is a driver in a central government organization had also come with me but the police sent him back saying I will also be sent back after some questioning", Imran recalled the day when his
ordeal at the hands of the police began.

Initially the police wanted him to become a witness against his uncle Shoaib, whom the police was trying to frame in a fake passport case. Shoiab was picked up on the suspicion that he was involved in the Mecca Masjid blast and projected him in the media as a terrorist and as a big catch. But when all the efforts including third degree torture failed to make him admit his "crime", they were forced to prepare a "fake passport" against him.

But when Imran expressed his ignorance about any fake passport case,the police decided to make him also an accused in another case.

"In a meeting with police officers, in which I was also sitting in a corner, Joint Commissioner of police Harish Kumar Gupta, a Kashmiri Pundit, said that as I was highlighted in the media as a terrorist,the police can not afford to let me go just like that. He asked them to book me in some case and they booked me in a fake passport case", said Shoaib Jagirdar, a father of two children.

"We were charged with conspiring against the country but it was infact the police which was conspiring against us", said Imran.

This was just the beginning of the suffering of both Shoaib and Imran. After a while the police booked them in a criminal conspiracy case and linked their names to the twin blasts at Lumbini Park and Gokul chat saying they had supplied the RDX for carrying out the attacks.

"I was taken aback by this allegation because I have never seen any explosive in my life", said Imran. "One day the police team led by inspector Ramachandran took me to a private guest house at Kompally in the outskirts of Hyderabad and subjected me to third degree torture", said Imran with a trembling voice.

"I can't tell you what they did to me. They fired six rounds of bullets which passed closed to my ears to frighten me. They threatened to kill me in encounter. They beat me throughout the night. They gave me electric shocks at my private parts and they told me that my time was up" he said.

When the day broke, another team of torturers took over and adopted new methods. "This time they tied a five liter water bottle to my penis and made me stand up with hands stretched upwards. I became so miserable that I was ready to confess any thing they wanted to. I even fell at the feet of Harish Kumar Gupta and
Ramachandran", said Imran. The nightmare continued for three days. The police wanted him to confess that he and his uncle were responsible for the blasts in Mecca Masjid and hand links with the blasts at other two places.

Imran showing one of the torture method done to him

The police also pressurized Imran and Shoaib to admit that they had links with the other two accused in the case Abdul Majeed and Mohammed Kaleem. "I had never seen them in my life but they wanted me to say they were my accomplices", said Jagirdar. They refused.

The torment entered a new phase when the police took both uncle and nephew separately to Bangalore for Narco test. "To make us talk during the test, they enacted a drama before the test in which a person comes and gives me a packet and I have to hand it over to somebody. They tried to insert such images in our mind so we say the same thing during the test", Shoaib said. Just before the test, the police officials made Shoaib and Imran talk to each other phone and forced Imran to tell him that he (Shoaib) had handed him over a packet of RDX. "This was all a game police was playing with us".

However nothing came out of the Narco tests of the two and what prosecution could lay before the court was only confessional statements forcefully extracted. During the cross examination, the complainant inspector YTR Reddy admitted before the court that he had nothing else to show as a proof, forcing the judge to dismiss the case and acquit the accused.

Both Shoaib and Imran were grateful to the judiciary as well as the CBI for doing justice to them. "The police conspiracy against us failed only after the CBI team took over the investigation in to Mecca Masjid case. They met us in the jail and after talking to us, gave us a clean chit", said Imran. The court on the other hand refused to believe in the fiction dished out by the police.

"But enough damage has already been done", says Imran who lost two years of engineering course. "My family's reputation is in tatters. My college refused permission to me for sitting in examination saying I was a terrorist. My father is facing humiliation in his office and others are calling him father of terrorist. My sister was harassed in her college and my younger brother was assaulted. BJP supporters attacked my home. Even though no charge of Mecca Masjid blast was
leveled against us by the police in the court, we were projected in the media as suspects in the case", says Imran.

Shoaib's experience was equally harsh. The government of Maharashtra cancelled his father's Kerosene dealership saying he was a terrorist involved in Mecca Masjid blast. Even in jail he was attacked by other Muslim prisoners for "targeting" a mosque. Even after coming out on bail Shoaib became target of angry passers by. "The police has used the media to brand me a terrorist", he said.

Shoaib was surprised that police chose him as a target though the RSS chief of Marahatwada region Vishnu Rangnath Rao Naik came forward to certify his good character.

But why of all the people Hyderabad police zeroed on him to pick up in connection with the Mecca Masjid blast. "I blame the intelligence agencies and local politicians of Jalna for this. I had become inconvenient for the leaders as I was raising the issue of waqf properties. The intelligence agencies are working to trap people like me in cases of other states so we don't get any help", he said.

"If any body has benefited all this, it is the police officers", says Imran. "Many police officials have been promoted for arresting a great terrorist called Imran", he says sarcastically. "Instead of catching the real culprits they have made us the escapegoats and were given promotions and rewards. The promotions should be withdrawn immediately", he says.

Imran and Shoaib after being released from the jail. Amjadullah Khan is also seen in the picture

Amjadullah Khan Khalid, a leader of Majlis Bachao Tehreek, who provided legal help to the accused in the case say that the court judgment is another proof that the Hyderabad police was fabricating false cases to trap the Muslim youth. "Now that the Hindutva terrorism has been exposed and the RSS activists were being arrested along with army persons and others, I am sure that the blast in Mecca Masjid and other places was also carried out be these elements. But instead of investigating their role, the government is targeting Muslims as they are a soft target. The government is afraid that if Hindus are arrested, there will be a majority backlash. Who cares if Muslims are framed or killed in fake encounters", he said.

Alleging that the communal minded police officers were conspiring to trap Muslims in false cases, Khalid demanded a commission to go in to the background of such officers, action against those responsible for booking false case and torturing Muslim youth.

"Two cases have already been dismissed by the court. The judgment in three other similar cases is due shortly. But before that the government should withdraw all such cases", he demanded.

He also demanded that the victims like Shoaib and Imran should be compensated for the irreparable damage they suffered.

Imran is however determined in one respect. "If for some reason I am not able to complete engineering, I will definitely become a journalist to fight for the weak, so they don't suffer the way I have suffered. I will help them by reporting about their sufferings". But is there any space left in the media for true stories and sufferings of the weak?