By TCN News,
New Delhi: Popular Front of India chairman E. M. Abdul Rahiman has welcomed the observations made by the Supreme Court Bench in favour of the innocent persons who are branded as terrorists and put behind bars because they belonged to a minority community. The court has ordered the acquittal of 11 persons, arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and other laws, and convicted for allegedly planning to create communal violence during the Jagannath Puri Yatra in Ahmadabad in 1994. The Bench has further said: “We emphasise and deem it necessary to repeat that the gravity of the evil to the community from terrorism can never furnish an adequate reason for invading personal liberty, except in accordance with the procedure established by the Constitution and the law”.
E. M. Abdul Rahiman stated: “The instruction given to the police by the Supreme Court to ensure that no innocent person has the feeling of sufferance only because ‘my name is Khan, but I am not a terrorist’, must be followed not only by Gujarat police, but also elsewhere in the country. In fact, it is a warning to secularise administration and police which time and again illustrate their communal bias against Muslims”. He urged governments at the Centre and States to see that various branches of police and the intelligence agencies in particular are cleansed from its prejudices against Muslims and their organisations.
The Supreme Court has criticized the act of invoking the TADA without following the safeguards, resulting in acquittal and giving an opportunity to the enemies of the country to propagate that it has been misused and abused.
E. M. Abdul Rahiman pointed out that the illegal detention of the innocent Muslims indefinitely without bail is not merely a matter of past TADA misuse. It continues to be repeated today under the amended provisions of UAPA. He stated that the present comments in Supreme Court judgment should act as guideline for the Central Government and political parties to drop the draconian provisions of TADA and POTA incorporated in UAPA through amendments.