By Janhastakshep and PUDR,
This is the follow up of fact-finding into Jamia Nagar “encounter” on 19th September 2008, by Jahastakshep-PUDR fact-finding team. A report of this was released to the press in September. Following the ‘encounter’ a witch hunt began, of Muslim youth from Azamgarh as terror suspects by various security agencies and its media-projection as the “nursery of terrorism”. The Jahastakshep-PUDR fact-finding team subsequently did undertook a fact finding investigation to Azamgarh last month. We sought to enquire into the myth and reality of relationships between terrorism, place and religion and also into the fear and anguish pervading the area. This report is based on on-the-spot study of the place and people, through interaction with common people selected at random, testimonies of the members of the affected families and neighbours and interviews with SP and the DM of the district. The report also includes our follow up in Delhi and Azamgarh of subsequent developments related to the ‘encounter’.
In Azamgarh city, we interacted with and interviewed Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad (Principal Shibli College), Dr. Javed Akhtar (whose house had been raided), Mr. Ehshan Ahmad and his wife, teachers of the Shibli College, school teachers, local journalists, civil rights activists, professionals, ordinary residents and eminent persons. In Sanjarpur and Saraimir we interacted with and interviewed the family members of Atif and Sajid, killed in Jamia Nagar ‘encounter’ and family members of the boys arrested from Saraimir, Lucknow and Delhi.
Following the Jamia Nagar “encounter” and media projection of Azamgarh as the “nursery” of terrorism echoing the Hindu Vahini (one of the various RSS outfits) chief and BJP MP from Gorakhpur, Mahanta Adityanath, raids were conducted in Azamgarh city and the villages of Sanjarpur and Saraimir.
Janhastakshep and PUDR team was joined in Azamgarh by a member of APCR and NCHRO. PUHR’s Vinod Yadav an advocate from Azamgarh and Sarfaraz also joined in. At the time of writing of this report, U.P. Police has arrested Mr. Yadav on superfluous charges IPC 419 and 420 and he is still in judicial custody, warning the people not to question the Police action.
Azamgarh is one of the backward districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, having no industry, or professional/higher educational institutions, the main economic activity is agriculture. The few towns of the district, once known for their exemplary crafts, are getting pushed into oblivion. In this situation, young people seeking higher education and professional training go to other cities – Lucknow, Varanasi, Aligarh and Delhi being the favourite destinations. The residents of Azamgarh have a history of over a century of migrating in search of work and the same continues today. Remittances by people working in various parts of the world, is a major source income apart from agriculture and crafts. Shibli National College established during the freedom movement, was one of the prominent centres of nationalist activities in eastern UP.
The Hindu-Muslim population in the city is almost evenly divided, though the average Muslim population in the district is about 13%. Yet during and in the aftermath of the independence and partition of the country and the pervasive communal frenzy and massacres, Azamgarh remained almost untouched with communal violence. The history of nationalist and socialist politics and the composition of the district ensured that Hindutva forces could hardly show any electoral presence even during the Rath Yatra and later demolition of the Babri Masjid. Thus Azamgarh does not fit into the ‘bigot’ Islamic attribute orchestrated by the rulers and echoed by the media. Bringing Azamgarh into the gun sights of the anti-terror squads has also meant transforming the image of the “terrorist” from Madarsa-educated bearded young man with round cap or Arabic head-scarf to modern educated and clean-shaven young men
The villages in news with terrorism – Sanjarpur, Saraimir and Binapara – the Muslim majority villages too have been untouched with any kind of serious communal tension or strife. The remittances made by those working abroad were used for educating their children and improving living standards by building pucca houses in villages. Most of them went out to work as skilled/unskilled labourers and realized the importance of education for a dignified life and hence a good education to their children became a priority. The local Shibli National College has also been stressing English and computer education in order to avail of the employment opportunities coming up over the last decade. The presence of youth from Azamgarh in Delhi and other cities, obtaining education, professional training or working in corporate offices at various levels is the reflection of the developments described above.
During our investigation, we found that boys belonging to the district are being haunted as scapegoats. A 17 year old Sajid killed in the so-called encounter and 2 others living in L-18 are said to have come to Delhi around 2 months before the encounter.
In our visit of Azamgarh, Saraimir and Sanjarpur, we talked to many people all of whom concurred that there had been no communal tension and rift in area prior to the Hindutva attack on its composite culture through Adityanath. The minor tension generated in the wake of BJP’s provocative rally proved to be short-lived. All of them are critical of the administration and media for demonizing Azamgarh, and want that all this must stop and the people of Azamgarh should be left to regain the peace and harmony, that is to restore the original balance.
Our on-the-spot study of the place and people through interaction with common people selected at random was supplemented by the testimonies of the members of the affected families and neighbors and interviews with SP and the DM of the district. We could meet the DM but the SP was busy with Mela arrangement .We could talk to him only on telephone.
In Sanjarpur and Saraimir we interacted with and interviewed the family members of Atif and Sajid, killed in Jamia Nagar encounter and family members of the boys arrested from Saraimir, Lucknow and Delhi apart from notables and common people..
We met the father of Atif, and he said that till 18.10.08, Atif went every evening to meet his elder brother and sisters (who were in Delhi), said his prayers and ate food there. He had done so on the night before he was killed as ‘terrorist’. His sisters had a ticket to return with Atif to village on 25.9.08. They totally reject police theory. We also met family members of another boy killed in L-18, Sajid (17 years) who came to Delhi for entrance examination in class XI in Jamia. Her mother is totally upset in this killing though her sons have not shown the video clipping of his dead body—from head to all parts of the upper body there were bullet wounds! We met father of Saif. According to Shadab, father of Saif, his other son who was in a Lucknow Medical college doing his internship is missing and he has informed the police. He gets telephone calls from Saif that he has admitted his guilt. The entire family of Saif is living in terror. No one knows what happened to other Sajid who was also occupying L-18. We met the family of Zeeshan, a resident of Azamgarh. His parents are teaching in Azamgarh. After the incident of 19th morning in Delhi, he telephoned his mother and asked her what to do, she advised him to surrender to police as he was innocent. In the morning while encounter was going on in the room where he lived, he was appearing in his final MBA paper of Delhi’s IIPM and later went to the office of Headlines Today at Jhandewalan, Delhi and told them his part of the story. When he came out of the building, Delhi Police arrested him as a ‘dreaded terrorist’. The first contact his parents had from Zeeshan was in the form of a telephone call from custody, ‘confessing’ that he is a criminal. Both the parents are unwell, and their only other son suffers from severe neurological disorders. At the time when the team met them they didn’t know how to meet Zeeshan, and fear and humiliation had debilitated them.
Apart from these testimonies, we spoke to many other people from Azamgarh town, Saraimir and Sanjarpur, and every one, particularly Muslims of the area are living in constant fear. RAF battalion is camping in Azamgarh. Personnel of local Police and ATS keep visiting the villages and threatening the people. People don’t believe the genuineness of the “encounter” and see a bigger design to malign Azamgarh and creating a feeling of impossibility of justice for the Muslims of Azamgarh. Mohammad Shoaib, advocate in Lucknow, who is lawyer of terror-suspect Arif, was manhandled in the court itself.
Observations
I. There have been several violations related to custody.
(i) Custodial confessions appear to be the primary basis of the police investigation. These are not admissible in court as evidence owing to the possibility of them being extracted under torture. The prolonged police custody, allegedly to ‘investigate’ the cases increases the possibility of torture and pressure on the accused. As is emerging today, in various past cases torture and coercion are not uncommon among the practices of counter terror cells. Those who demand the return of POTA seek to make these admissible as ‘evidence’.
(ii) Special Cell has been responsible for grave abuse of custody of the accused. Police custody has been sought by them repeatedly to ‘investigate’ the charges. During this time the police have denied access to parents and lawyers of arrestees to them, and instead made them ‘confess’ under duress to their families on telephone. At the same time the Special Cell compounded the gravity of their violation by giving access to the media (for example India Today) to the publicise so called ‘custodial confessions’ by the accused.
(iii) The Special Cell has violated almost all Supreme Court guidelines on arrest —they did not inform families of the arrests, did not let them meet the arrestees, did not inform them of their place of detention, carried out raids in Azamgarh and seized objects without seizure memos. They did not let even lawyers of the accused meet them until they went to court.
(iv) The Special Cell and the UP and Maharashtra Anti Terror Squads have consistently attempted to intimidate and pressurize families of all arrested and missing from Jamianagar and Azamgarh. The telephone calls and narration of forced ‘confessions’by the youths to their families were aimed at striking fear into and silencing them. Similarly during ‘raids’ in Azamgarh, the photographing of all family members and threats to arrest them, were calculated to terrorise them.
(v) Finally the counter terror squads sought to intimidate those raising their voices against these violations by them. They arrested PUHR activists on spurious charges simply for this purpose.
II. Communal Bias: In their operation these investigations carried out by the Counter Terror agencies are highly communally biased.
(i) They bypass procedures, norms and methods of proper investigation and in their hurry to get results, they rely on shortcuts, depending on prejudices and stereotypes to pick up people, interrogate and detain, instead of looking for those who may have actually done the act. Thus because they are only looking for Muslims, and in this case particularly, young educated Muslim men from Azamagarh they only find young Muslim men of that description- regardless of their connection with the crime. This is then sought to be contrived through ‘confessions’and those really guilty of the crimes roam free.
(ii) The biggest fear is of course that they do this because they feel that people are so scared of terrorism that anything done in the name of fighting terrorism is becoming acceptable. The stigma of the label of ‘terrorist’ on anyone seems to be enough for civil society to deny them all basic rights. The state forces thus act with impunity because of this tacit acceptance among people to surrender democratic rights in the name of countering terror. This has to be combated. The terror created by the state aparatuses in the name of countering terror has to be stopped by all those who support democracy.
III. The impact of all this has been singularly terrifying for the Muslims of Azamgarh. Parents and relatives of arrested boys were so scared that they were hesitant even to appoint lawyers and meeting them despite High Court order, permitting the meeting. The atmosphere is such that out of fear parents are calling back their children studying outside. Many students studying outside had disconnected themselves from the family and the relatives. In the villages in and around Sanjarpur, residents, afraid of sudden police raid, were keeping night vigil.
IV. A section of media is acting as Police media in attempt to increase TRPs by making news sensational instead of objective. By doing so, advertently-inadvertently, it is being part of a dangerous campaign to divide people on artificially created communal lines that have far reaching, dangerous consequences for the humanity in general and the country in particular. Knowing well the non-admissibility of interrogational confessions in the courts, a section of media publishes details of”confessional” statements without a word about how they are being treated.
Our Demands:
· We reiterate our demands as given in the press release dated 26th September 2008 including that of the judicial enquiry into the Jamia Nagar “encounter” by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
· The state should stop targeting innocent people of Azamgarh and demonizing the district.
· The violation of the established procedures cited above are all defined as offences in law. It is required that police personnel responsible for such violations be brought to book.
· Those illegally detained should be immediately released and the responsibility must be fixed for compliance of the various rules and provisions of law relating to the conduct of the state apparatus.