By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Their family had a sigh of relief when Abdul Rasheed Agwan and Adnan Fahad reached their home in Abul Fazl Enclave area around midnight after spending full 12 hours in the police custody.
They were picked up from their homes around 11:30 am on Sunday by the Anti-Terrorism Squad sleuths for questioning in connection with the Delhi serial bombings on Saturday in which 26 people were killed. Though it was never disclosed in the interrogation but the questions revealed that they wanted to get some clues about those responsible for the blasts.
TCN interview with Agwan
“They asked several questions about SIMI and its people, they pressed me to give names of some SIMI people in my locality,” said Abdul Rasheed Agwan while talking to TwoCircles.net. He told them he didn’t know how a banned organization can remain active.
“The Delhi blasts are anti-human act and whoever is responsible for it should be punished and I am ready to help the police,” he told the police officials who were interrogating him in the Lodhi Road Police Station.
He was asked where he was on Saturday between 5-5:30 pm. He said he was at home with two non-Muslim guests from Hyderabad. They had come to consult him about starting an NGO.
Abdul Rasheed Agwan runs several organizations. Prominent among them is Centre for Advancement of Voluntary Efforts, a consultancy firm that helps people in opening NGO. “I help them in registration, share information about funding agencies and government schemes and train their staff,” said Agwan who is one of the prominent Muslim social activists in New Delhi.
Abdul Rasheed Agwan in his home office
The interrogators also asked him about Abul Bashar who was arrested from Azamgarh last month and was later projected as the mastermind of the Ahmedabad serial blasts.
“Do you know about Abul Bashar?” they asked. “Not more than what has appeared in the media,” he said. They told him that Bashar has his cell no. and he has stayed at his home. Agwan denied the charges.
When TCN asked Agwan why the police and investigating agencies detained you, a prominent Muslim, he said it seems a new trend. Besides common Muslim youths and madrasa graduates they are now arresting prominent personalities just to demoralize the community, said Agwan who is attached with several organizations.
He is president of the Foundation for Social Care (based in Lucknow). That organization provides scholarship to students pursuing diploma courses. It runs a 10-bed hospital there, a hospital for AIDS patients and also a school.
He is also assistant general secretary of All India Education Movement whose president is noted educationist Syed Hamid. The organization has in the past launched several caravans on the issues of education, health and communal harmony.
When Agwan was being interrogated, intelligence officials and ATS sleuths were busy in sending barrage of questions to Adnan Farhad, a youth in early 30s who was picked by the Anti-Terrorist Squad on Sunday around 11 am.
He was asked questions as if he was active member of banned SIMI. “Hundreds of questions were asked to me from 1 pm to 10:30 pm,” recalls Adnan, father of two kids, to TwoCircles.net.
“Are you Shia, Sunni or Ahmadi?” was the first question to him. “I am simple Muslim,” he told them on which they retorted saying it means “you are ahle hadees as they say such things” recalls Adnan.
“Who do you know in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat,” they asked. When he said he didn’t know any particular one but people come to him for business purpose from across the country, the sleuths threatened him of physical torture if did not budge.
He runs a shop in Daryaganj where he does DTP work and also printing work.
Shahi Imam Ahmad Bukhari with Adnan Fahad (right)
He was asked about all his activities in the last 14 days from meal to namaz to meeting with people, he said.
Adnan says he was humiliated during the questioning.
“Have you got your passport,” they asked. “Yes.” “Do you want to go Pakistan?” they retorted, recalls Adnan.
They asked him about their friends or relatives in Pakistan, Bangladesh and England.
He was grilled for half an hour on his alleged connection with SIMI and Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO).
They took his email ID and password and checked his emails.
At the end he was given a paper to sign. What he could read in a flash of time was that it mention of Delhi blasts and failure of interrogation.
During the detention he was not allowed to talk to his family. At the last hour when he had signed the paper, he was allowed to talk to his mother.
From the whole exercise what the intelligence agencies got is not known but Agwan and Adnan got was humiliation and a suspicious look from his neighbours. However, they were happy that they were not physically tortured during the interrogation.