Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories from Madhya Pradesh: Part 2
By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net
“In my case, all prosecution witness went hostile there was no proof against me but still I was convicted,” said Arshad Bilgrami former member of SIMI who was booked in the year 2000 for the poster case.
In 2000, an All India Conference of SIMI was planned in Bhopal, which was subsequently not allowed to be held by the Digvijay Singh Government. But activists of SIMI went ahead and put up the posters of their conference in Muslim dominated parts of MP. That poster contained verse 35 of Surah Mohammed: ‘Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost: for Allah is with you, and will never put you in loss for your (good) deeds.’ According to the police that poster also contained image of hands filled with blood, which depicts the ‘enemies of Islam.’
Police started arresting members of SIMI and their supporters from their houses. Arshad alleged that he was arrested at 3 a.m. in the night along with scores of other youths. He said, “We had been targeted in the name of cracking fundamentalism. Why same kind of cases and arresting was not done to the right wing Hindutva forces which has been distributing literature challenging Islam in the whole of M.P for decades.”
Arshad was convicted after 10 years of trial in 2010 by the Sessions Court; he appealed against the verdict in the Trial Court. He said, “Environment in the court is not good, when we go to court for hearing police surround us as if we are dreaded criminals.” Even outside the court, “we have been put under 24 hours surveillance.”
Interesting thing about this year 2000 conference poster case is, different cases is booked in different police stations for the same alleged offence. Arshad was booked in cases involving three different police stations of Bhopal.
Khalid Nayeem is another former member of SIMI who was booked in same poster case, he was booked in four cases, two in Bhopal and other two in Jabalpur for the same alleged offence. He said, “Police booked these fake cases just to crush the self-respect, confidence, and morale of SIMI activists and to harass them by putting them in continuous surveillance. I along with other youngsters like, Abdul Razzaq, Sohrab ahmed, Abdul Aleem and Muneer Deshmukh were arrested from our houses in the midnight. We all were practicing and educated Muslims with good professional background. Police arrested us as if we were involved in dreadful cases, Mohammad Tahir was arrested in this same case, his house and library was vandalized in the name of search when they didn’t find him, his whole family was detained by the police.”
Khalid alleged that government in MP whether it be congress or BJP has played a dubious role, “Digvijay Singh in one hand promoted Bajrang Dal and targeted us declaring our organization as an extremist outfit.” Things have not changed with the change in government, he declares, “the present Home Minister Umashankar Gupta is personally supervising our cases and making sure that our life will not get normal again.”
Mohammad Akheel a resident of Ujjain was an active member of SIMI before the outfit got banned; he was just 19 when booked in the same poster case. From Ujjain, 15 youngsters were arrested along with Akheel. Again in 2001, he was booked in Surat Educational Summit case, which was the last meeting officially organized by SIMI before they were banned. According to him, it was a meeting to promote education among young Muslims, but police claimed that the summit propagated hatred among different communities.
After the arrest and getting booked in two cases, Akheel said his life has become miserable. He said, “I was pursuing diploma in mechanical engineering but had to discontinue it due to the ongoing cases and hearings. Police started visiting my house to inspect about my whereabouts. I started a taxi business and use to travel with passengers throughout MP, but whenever I use to travel out of Ujjain police used to start harassing my family members and keep on asking them where I ran away. I closed that business and opened my own mobile sells and service shop, then police started inspecting the mobiles I sold and repaired this resulted in fear among customers so I had to close that business to. After a year of marriage, my wife divorced me due to psychological harassment from the police. Presently I am in real estate business, police attitude have not changed they keep a close eye on land deals and continue inspecting my customers.”
11 years have passed but trial of the poster case in which Akheel and 15 other youngsters from Ujjain were booked still goes on, and with that the police harassment.