By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
Ahmedabad: Severe beating of 22 Muslim youths inside the Sabarmati Central Jail here has forced the legal eagles and the human rights activists to challenge the Bombay Jail Manual of 1935 in the Gujarat high court, seeking it to be scrapped with immediate effect.
The Muslim youths are facing charges of planning and carrying out serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26 last year. A total of 59 persons, including a Muslim, had died in the blast, sending shock waves throughout the country.
Dr. Mukul Sinha [Photo by New Socialist Movement]
However, the general Muslim perception in Gujarat as also rest of India is that the youths are innocent and have been implicated falsely by the Bharatya Janata Party government in the state headed by Narendra Modi who shot into international limelight following a statewide anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 in which about 2,000 Muslims were killed, lakhs of other displaced and Muslim properties worth billions of rupees destroyed.
Though prisoners inside the jail are not allowed to be physically abused, it was a rare incident in the history of prisons in Gujarat that 22 Muslim prisoners were severely beaten up on the pretext that they had clashed with jail officials who wanted them to give up their mass hunger strike on March 26.
The beating up of the jail inmates was also admitted in an affidavit submitted to the Gujarat high court by the Inspector General of Police (Prisons) Keshav Kumar on March 30. However, the affidavit claimed that the inmates sustained minor injuries only and were given treatment. The relatives of the inmates and their advocates claim that all of them sustained very serious injuries and many of them were not able to walk and sit properly. According to the relatives, Sajid Mansuri, Abbas Saneja and Mufti Abu Bashar are in a serious condition.
In fact, it was due to provisions of the jail manual that a magisterial court on April 6 turned down applications seeking investigation into beating up of prisoners in the jail.
Though special magistrate G M Patel directed to provide extra food and medical treatment to the injured inmates, he refused to get the `panchnama’ (recording of statements of the victims in present of at least two witnesses) of the injury marks done with the observation that there is no provision in jail law for this.
Speaking to TwoCircles.net, senior advocate and Ahmedabad-based NGO Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM) representative Mukul sinha said that the provisions of the jail manual prepared by British rulers were draconian and in serious violation of Article 21 of the Constitution, which says that nobody’s life and liberty can be taken away without the due process of law and that the law has to be just and fair.
“It is totally unacceptable as it violated the human rights of citizens,” he says, declaring that his organization is going to challenge the manual in the high court, seeking removal of the objectionable portions with immediate effect.
“`While there is a ban on whipping, the jail manual prepared by the foreign rulers to put curb on freedom fighters activities allows whipping in case of mass hunger strike,” says another advocate and human rights activist S H Iyer.
According to another JSM activist and lawyer Shamshad Pathan, hunger strike was used as weapon by freedom fighters particularly Mahatma Gandhi against the unjust and inhuman policies of the British period. “how can then hunger strike be termed as mutiny in free India,” he questioned, stating there was an urgent need to delete obnoxious provisions of the manual which was being used to commit excesses on prisoners.
Senior advocate I M Munshi, who is defending the blast accused, said the jail manuals provisions were retrogressive in nature. “I am going to initiate criminal proceedings against the jail officials who were involved in beating up of the undertrials,” Munshi said.
Munshi said that while the undertrials were beaten up, they had also been made accused by the jail officials. According to him, jail officials allegedly told the blast accused: “you are involved in bomb blasts, you are terrorists, you should be shot dead.”
The jail manual on its page 732 says: “hunger striking is a major jail offence and mass hunger striking amounts to mutiny, and as such prisoners committing these breaches of jail rules are liable to be whipped, forfeit al earned remissions, be removed from remission register and any other punishment considered suitable under Rule 703, Bombay Jail Manual, by the jail superintendent.”
The manual also directs jail staff to give little publicity to the hunger strike and a ban on prisoners from giving interviews to visitors and even their family members and advocates.
It was because of this provision that the relatives of the prisoners beaten up inside the Sabarmati jail were first denied meeting with their relatives and advocates for several days after the incident. And when the meeting was allowed, relatives were warned not to share the information with the media: an act amounting to gagging the freedom of expression.
The manual also bans the prisoners from writing or receiving letters, a draconian law under the British period to prevent people from raising their voice against foreign rule.
Reacting to it, PUCL (Gujarat) president J S Bandukwala commented that the jail manual could never be violative of the Constitution of India.
“But the very fact that people are seriously beaten up inside the jail and media gives extensive coverage but no independent medical help or legal aid is given to stop beatings, suggests that Gujarat police is substantially communalized,” commented Bandukwala.
“It is ironic that this is happening when the Director General of Gujarat police is a Muslim,” he remarked. Shabbir Sheikh Adam Khandwawala, the seniormost IPS official, was recently appointed DGP on Election Commission of India’s orders.
Prisoners who sustained injuries:
1. Mufti Abu Bashar Abubakar.
2. Usman anis Agarbattiwala.
3. Sajid Mansuri.
4. Iqbal Kasam Sheikh.
5. Yunus Muhammed Mansuri.
6. Gayasuddin Abdul salim Ansari.
7. Shamsuddin Shahabuddin Sheikh.
8. Imran Ibrahim sheikh.
9. Muhammed Arif Iqbal Kagzi.
10. Zahid Qutbuddin sheikh.
11. Ayaz Razzaqmiyan Saiyed.
12. Javed Ahmed Sabir Ahmed Saiyed.
13. Abbas Umar Sameja.
14. Naved Naimuddin Qadari.
15. Salim Jamal Sipahi.
16. Umar alias Ashok Kalabhai.(He is a dalit convert Muslim. He converted to Islam about five years ago. His wife delivered a son after he was arrested and jailed in July. As his family landed in financial crisis after his arrest, his wife has withdrawn their elder son and a daughter from school, now doing odd jobs to earn livelihood for the family).
17. Muhammed Ismail Abdul Raziq.
18. Rafiuddin Sharfuddin Kapadia.
19. Muhammed Arif Nasim Ahmed.
20. Qayamuddin Sharfuddin Kapadia.
21. Muhammed Naushad Muhammed Iqbal.
22. Ahmed Baba Abu Bakr.