By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: The privileges of being accused as an “ISI” agent is that it not only guarantees continuous torture, mental as well as physical, by the state, but it turns you a “suspect” in the eyes of the entire nation. The life story of Md. Haneef, allegedly an ISI agent, witnesses this very trajectory. Haneef recently lost his job, allegedly because his employer got to know that he was an “ISI agent.”
A file photo in which Haneef broke down talking about his torture
When you talk to Haneef, he painstakingly explains in detail how the charges against him are very frivolous. He was picked up by Ghaziabad police, tortured and then sent to Assam on the charges of being an “ISI agent.” There is neither any witness nor evidence against him to prove his culpability. But the case is dragging on and on and on.
TCN highlighted his case few months back.
Haneef tells me instances of how the charges of being an “ISI agent” hasn’t been as much a torture and harassment to him, as have been its impact on his social life.
The latest casualty was, he alleged, his job of a door to door salesman which involved convincing people to buy the locally produced mixer grinder. Speaking to TwoCircles.net, he alleges that that he was thrown out of the job, the only thing he had to fall back upon, just because his company people got to know that there was a police case and worse, a “terror” case on him. Although he was terminated on the pretext of alleged failure of not meeting the sales target which a salesman is given on a weekly basis. But Haneef out rightly rejects the allegations though. When TCN tried to reach out to the local dealer where this father of three daughters, used to work, they refused to comment.
“What is my fault except that I am a poor Muslim who doesn’t even know what the charges on him are? I have lost even my job. Now from where will I be able to feed my family?” this is how he reaches out to this correspondent almost crying in his house in Khajoori.
“Need a job to survive”
Losing job is not the only thing Haneef faced since 2005 when he was picked up by the Ghaziabad police, tortured and sent to Assam. He is living life of a nomad. Because of the tag of “ISI agent” no body is ready to give their room on rent. So he lives very far from his people in Khajuri, at a place where people don’t know about his past. He has changed more than seven houses just because the room owner got to know that there was a terror case against him. A victim of social boycott, he lost every relative that he had and every social sympathy which used to vouch for him.
Md. Hanif with his family
Like rooms, he has changed several jobs because the moment his employer got to know about the case against him, they used to ask him to leave. It’s been a Herculean challenge for this man to feed the family of four including three daughters, Ayesha, Sana and Fatma. A visit to his ‘house’ will tell you that his entire world is a dilapidated room which is not actually a room but just a corner with almost nothing in it.
A talk with Farida, Haneef’s wife shows that her life hasn’t been about saving some thing to decorate her house; but it has been about a struggle to survive. “At the beginning of each day, arranging two times meal for my three daughters, is a challenge for me and my husband,” Farida says with an existential sadness on her face.
“Every night I feel like committing suicide but what stop me are the innocent faces of my three daughters,” adds Haneef.
Thinking that I must be having good contacts, Haneef and Farida, request me with folded hands, almost in supplication before me, to find Haneef with a job. “Allah will help you in your problems and our daughters’ prayers will be for you. Please help me out with a job. I can do any work.”
Haneef’s request to help him out has triggered another crisis of thoughts in me. How should a journalist who covers Indian Muslims, balance out between the professional demands to remain detached from his/her story and the desire to become activist.