By IANS,
Lucknow : The police have registered the complaint of a retired government employee that police officers picked him up illegally, tortured him and forced him to admit his non-existent “involvement” in the serial blasts in Delhi, when he came here to get a visa for his Haj pilgrimage.
Noorul Hassan, a resident of Kasimabad village in Ghazipur district, 325 km from here, alleged that he was picked up by two men in plainclothes from the Alambagh locality of Lucknow Oct 25 when he came here to get a visa for the Haj pilgrimage. He was to collect his visa from the Haj House.
“We have lodged an FIR (first information report),” inspector K.K. Bhatt of Kasimabad police station told IANS on phone Tuesday. “Hassan suspects the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) and the Special Task Force (STF) is behind this. However, the incident took place in Lucknow and the case has been transferred there.”
At the state capital here, additional director general of police (crime, law and order) Brijlal denied the involvement of ATS and STF. He suspected “criminal elements” instead.
“I conducted an inquiry at my level and additional superintendent of police Ghazipur went to his house and took his statement regarding the incident,” Brijlal told IANS. “We are investigating the matter and those found guilty will be punished.”
On Oct 31, Hassan had told IANS: “I was picked up in the early hours as soon as I got down from a bus and the cops, besides forcing me to accept that I am a resident of Sarai Meer locality of Azamgarh, also produced a youth before me and forced me to ‘recognize’ him as a key suspect in the blasts.
“Realising perhaps that they (cops) have picked up a wrong person, they later left me on the road in an unconscious state in the Alambagh locality,” added Hassan, who used to work for the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation.