By Abdul Hameed, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: In what seemed apparently a move to prevent any agitation against the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at her arrival in Mumbai, the police arrested three persons who had earlier spoken against the American and Israeli policies.
The local police detained Firoz Mithiborwal, Kishor Jagtap and Aslam Gazi on Friday night and released them at late noon on Saturday. Talking to TCN the trio told that the police did not tell them as to why they were arrested and why were let off later.
Firoz Mithiborwala, one of the founder members of Awami Bharat Sansatha, an organization formed nearly three years back and criticizes Indian’s relations with America and Israel, told TCN on phone, ‘Last night at 8 pm the police raided my house in Andheri and without any question they detained me. I was let off at 6 pm today. During this period they neither interrogated me nor told me the reason behind my detention.’
He added that perhaps our detention was in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s arrival in Mumbai. We have been agitating against the Indian policies which are pro-America and Israel. ‘A reporter of IBN has commented that behind our detention there is FBI and Israel,’ he said.
‘When the police arrived my home at 8pm, I was not present. I was in Panvel. They made repeated calls to me asking that I should come back my home at earliest,’ told Kishor Jagtap, who is one of the founder members of Awami Bharat Sansatha, adding ‘during the time I came to know that Mithiborwal too was detained, therefore, I went straight the MIDC police station where Firoz was. We asked whether the police had any warrant against us but they asked us to wait for tomorrow. But tomorrow (Saturday) they set us free without telling any reason for our detention.’
Aslam Ghazi, the secretary of Public Relation Department of Maharashtra unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind revealed while talking to TCN that he too was arrested without telling him any reason of his arrest. “The police took me from my house in Kurla (W) to Vinoba Bhave police station where inspector Bhonsle asked me to stay with him for the whole night as he said, ‘Your life is in danger.’
Ghazi added that they escorted him to Kurla police station and there he was kept till Saturday. However, at 6:30 pm he too was let off. He further told that at 2:30 pm they had him have a medical check too at Bhabha Hospital in Kurla.
Being asked why he might have been detained along with Mithiborwala and Jagtap of Awami Bharat, Ghazi said, ‘We too had opposed the nuclear deal and we are against Israel too.’
Though the police officially did not tell any thing to them as to why their detention was made, the three suspect it was due to their opposition to the American and Israel policies. Hillary Clinton who arrived Mumbai at 10:15 pm on Friday aims at building on Indo-US ties and possibly signing key defense and nuclear power deals.