By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net
Lucknow (UP): Eleven days after the Barabanki session court acquitted Kashmiri PhD scholar Gulzar Ahmed Wani in the Sabarmati express train blast case, he is yet to be released due to the callous nature of the jail authorities at Lucknow and Nagpur jails.
According to his defense counsel, Gulzar has been acquitted in two cases pending against him in Nagpur but in Jail records of Lucknow show that there are four pending cases. However, the Lucknow jail was unable to arrange guards to escort Gulzar to Nagpur Jail for nine days.
“So there is a mistake in Lucknow jail records and it will be clarified. After that, he will be taken to Nagpur jail and hence released from there,” said APCR coordinator, Abubakr Sabbaq whose team is assisting him in his case in Nagpur.
“My father has already paid shifting charges on May 20 itself. But ten days have passed since and he is yet to be shifted,” Mudasir Ghulam Wani, Gulzar’s younger brother told TwoCircles.net .
Mudasir and his brother have been waiting for Gulzar at Nagpur since last three days.
“We are here to take him home. When we tried to know why there is delay in his shifting, we were shocked to hear that jail authorities were not able to arrange the escort for shifting him to Nagpur,” Mudasir said.
TwoCircles.net contacted Superintendent, District Jail Lucknow, who confirmed that there was problem with arranging guards for escort and said that Wani had been shifted on Monday, May 29 for Nagpur Jail.
However, more worryingly for the family, the Nagpur jail authorities said on Wednesday morning that they have no information about Wani and that they have not received any inmate by that name. “We are getting worried now,” Mudasir told TwoCircles.net. “If he left Lucknow on May 29, then how come he has not reached Nagpur yet?” asked a worried Mudasir.
The Barabanki session court on Saturday, May 20 had acquitted 44 year old Wani for lack of evidence in Sabarmati express train blast case after sixteen years of incarceration.
Gulzar, a resident of Tappar Bala, Pattan in north Kashmir Baramullah district was arrested in 2001 when he was just 28 and was pursuing his PhD from Department of Arabic, Aligarh Muslim University.
Gulzar was implicated in numerous blasts and alleged of involved in various conspiracies and slapped with 15 FIRs in different police stations of Delhi, Maharashtra and UP and he stands acquitted in all the cases.
Related:
Gulzar Ahmed Wani, who lost 16 years to false terror charges, now wants to teach kids in Kashmir
We don’t provide legal aid to individual Kashmiris suspected of terror: Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind