Booked for Ahmedabad bomb blasts while he was languishing in Indore Central Jail
Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories from Madhya Pradesh: Part 6
By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net
On 26 July 2008 a series of 21 bomb blasts hit Ahmedabad, within a span of 70 minutes. 56 people were killed and over 200 were injured. These bombings occurred just a day after Bangalore bomb blast. National news channels received e-mail from organization calling itself Indian mujahedeen claiming the responsibility of the blasts, and termed the blasts as a revenge of Gujarat’s anti-Muslim violence of 2002. Those emails were traced to an IP address in Navi Mumbai of an American national Ken Haywood. ATS questioned Mr. Haywood but he slip out of India even after a look out notice was issued for him.
Immediately Sushma Swaraj, opposition leader of the BJP, at a press conference in New Delhi, made controversial comments and claimed that ruling UPA government had a conspiratorial hand in the blasts to divert attention from the allegations of bribery as well as to gain Muslim votes by victimizing them through blasts.
By that time Gujarat police came into action, they rounded up nearly 43 Muslims from Gujarat, on August 16, 2008 exactly 20 days after the blast Gujarat police claimed to have solved the blast case, making a world record of solving bomb blast case in such a few days. The fact is that from the beginning of investigation till now ‘master mind’ of the blast keep on changing. On that same day the then Director General of Police P.C. Pande announced that Mufti Abu Bashir a former SIMI member was the mastermind of the blasts. But on November 20, 2008, the Gujarat Police again announced that Amir Raza Khan, a HuJI operative from Kolkata and now in Pakistan, was the mastermind of the blasts. This changed the whole direction of the blast from IM to HUJI and gave it an international outlook. Police then declared a SIMI faction led by Safdar Nagori and others were the planners and the executors of the blast.
Aamil parvez is a resident of Unhel town in Ujjain district he is one among many other Muslim youths from MP who has been sent to Sabarmati jail Ahmedabad on charges of carrying out Ahmedabad bomb blasts.
Interesting thing about Aamil parvez case is he was in Indore prison while the bomb blasts rocked Ahmedabad. He was arrested in March 2008 by MP ATS; he was shown to be arrested from a rented building in Shyam Nagar area of Indore along with 12 other SIMI members including Safdar Nagori, where they were allegedly conducting a secret meeting. Police called it a big breakthrough because all the top leaders who allegedly went underground after SIMI was banned, were arrested in that operation. Though Aamil parvez was never been absconding according to the police record, but still he was shown as one of the underground leader of the Safdar faction and member of Central Advisory Council. They all were booked under Sec. 122, 122(A), 153 of I.P.C, sec 3, 10, 13 of UAPA, and Sec. 25, 27 of Arms Act.
But according to his wife Shabnam Aamil, Parvez went to Indore like he does every month for the hearing of his 1997 rally case and police arrested him from outside the court premises on March 24th and showed him arrested from a meeting point. According to Shabnam, her husband was an active member of SIMI before the ban, he came under police scanner when he organized a rally in Indore in 1997. Police did not arrest him for that case, but case is still going on.
Mrs. Aamil talking to TwoCircles.net informed that her husband was a religious man and had connections with SIMI before the ban. Parvez who used to do farming in home town Unhel was booked by the police under National Security Act in 2006 for reconstructing their family established mosque. She said, “When my husband tried to reconstruct our family-established but encroached mosque he was booked under NSA on the charges that he is fighting to construct a new mosque, police started calling him for questioning. He feared arrest from police and went out of town, after four months when he came back he was arrested by the police and he spent one year in jail from 2006-07. After coming out on bail he started going to Indore every month for the proceedings of 1997 rally case as he doesn’t wanted to give police another chance to arrest him.”
MP ATS after arresting him alleged that Aamil also runs weapon training camps of SIMI in Dhar, M.P.; in Vagamon, Kerela; in Vadodra, Gujrat. MP ATS also claimed that Safdar Nagori and Aamil Parvez themselves guided MP ATS to an open filed in Dhar district where they allegedly used to train youngsters. Police claimed to have recovered sophisticated weaponry, gelatin sticks and detonators from that open filed.
His wife Shabnam rubbishes all the claims of ATS. She said, “My husband was booked under NSA and spent one year in jail from 2006-07, and police arrested him in 2008 for whole one year there was no word from police of training camps. And one should wonder how a man who was booked in NSA, spent one year in jail, who was always been in police scanner, roamed whole country freely to conduct terror training camps, all this are nothing but lies from MP ATS.”
About Gujarat bomb blast case she told us that her husband was in Indore jail 4 months prior to the blast, she questioned how he was booked for perpetrating and planning those attacks when he was already in prison. Speaking about ordeal his husband suffered in the custody of Gujarat police she said, “Gujarat police took custody of my husband for 124 days during that period he told us that Gujarat police gave him electric shocks even on his private parts, he was not allowed to sleep for days, and he was beaten every single hour.”
Showing concern about the way which trial is going on in Gujarat she said, “My husband spent nearly five years in jail for no fault of his, the trial is going on in slow mode. The atmosphere in the court is also biased when my husband complained about the slow judicial process to the lady judge who is seeing the proceedings; she threatened my husband that you should wait as you are going to get life imprisonment.”
She also added that “I believe my husband is innocent as police do not have any direct evidence in his case and he will be acquitted but when that day will come is my concern. If he will get declared innocent after spending 10 years or 15 years in prison then who will compensate for my loss, my children’s loss? government should increase the speed of the trial so that my husband can walk free soon.”
Ending our talk she breaks down while appealing to the Muslim leaders to raise their issue of terror arrests. She said while crying “Muslim leaders in their luxuries should not forget those Muslims and the pain of their loved ones who are suffering in draconian jails in the name of fighting terrorism.”