On September 15, newspapers of Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh were full of news of the arrest some terrorists. Relations of captured Muslim boys were told to the Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. It was also told that these people were planning blasts at important places in the state, which were caught earlier.
Along with these boys, there were reports of arrest of 3 people from Rae Bareli and Lucknow, which were said to be related to each other. The press release issued by Anti Terror Squad (ATS) on September 15 said that 6 people were arrested from three places, including 2 names from Allahabad, but later the number of arrests from Allahabad increased to 4. Also picked up two brothers from Delhi, who are members of the family of Humaid arrested in Allahabad and also business partners among themselves.
After his arrest on September 14, many misleading information about him kept coming in the newspapers for several days, including the release of some people. Due to these misleading news coming in and the people of the area acknowledging the innocent people arrested, Allahabad PUCL decided to investigate it and formed the team. The team included advocate of the High Court and senior partner of PUCL, KK Roy, advocate Seema Azad, advocate Charlie Prakash, advocate Soni Azad and PUCL Allahabad secretary Manish Sinha. Javed Mohamed, Umar Khalid, Kaleem and Rahil collaborated at the local level.
On September 21, the investigation team talked to the family members of arrested Zeeshan and Humaid, while the family members of arrested Tariq and Shahrukh have locked themselves in the house in panic and are not talking to anyone. But it came to know from the neighbors that the news of Shahrukh who was released after interrogation was a lie, he has not been released.
The things that the investigation team came to know after talking to the people of two Zeeshan and Humaid’s house and the local people are that…..
Zeeshan and Tariq were arrested on morning of 14 September. Tariq was arrested before Zeeshan. Zeeshan’s father told that at 10 in morning ATS came and went back after interrogating Zeeshan, the questioning was focused on one issue, where were the day before? After half an hour, they came again with a boy named Tahir, then took Zeeshan, saying that he has to do some information, then he will leave. Once around 11:30 in the night, they made Zeeshan talk to the family members on the phone. Then at 6 o’clock in the morning, ATS again made Zeeshan talk to the family members, in which he talked about being taken to Delhi.
His father told about Zeeshan that he has done MBA. He had gone to Muscat for the job. Earlier Zeeshan’s father also used to work there and Zeeshan’s childhood was spent there. After the lockdown, he returned to his country. After sitting empty for a few days, Tahir made him meet Humaid, who was doing date palm business. Large quantities of dates come from Saudi Arabia which are sent to many parts of the country. Zeeshan also invested money in this business at the behest of Humaid. But he could not get that money back. Humaid was making him run for several days when he asked for the money back.
In its press release, the ATS has asked Zeeshan to go to Pakistan and take training from ISI, while Zeeshan’s father said that he never went to Pakistan nor did they have any relatives there.
Zeeshan was presented in Delhi’s Patiala Court on September 15 at 11.30 am. On the same day, press release issued by ATS talked about the arrest of 6 terrorists from Uttar Pradesh, in which names of Zeeshan and Tariq were from Allahabad.
PUCL nvestigation team met Humaid’s two sisters and brother Maulana Saifur Rahman at Humaid’s house.
Sisters told that when the lock of the gate was opened at 7.45 am on September 15, at the same time about 40-50 ATS some of them were in uniform and without uniform, in a hurry and forcibly entered part of the house which was not Humaid’s. Rather a separate part. Division of 6 brother’s living house has been done, Humaid used to live in his share with their family. They snatched everyone’s mobiles and got every room opened in which daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law were sleeping.
The sisters told that they asked Abbu (Father) that how many weapons licenses do you have? And how many people are in government jobs. Abbu told that we do not have a single license. When told about Humaid that there is house on the other side, everyone ran there and some stayed. He interrogated Humaid’s wife for three hours. They were asking the same thing again and again, where is the weapon? Humaid has made two marriages, his second wife, who lives at Tiranga crossroads in Kareli, was later questioned in similar manner.
Humaid’s two nephews Osama 22, were also arrested by the police on the same morning from Delhi. Osama lives in Delhi with his elder brother’s family and his wife and children. Both the brothers were also engaged in the date business with Humaid. The main operator of this business is Osama’s father ie Humaid’s elder brother, who lives in Saudi Arabia. Humaid looks after this business in India. The brother told that in addition to ATS, Enforcement Directorate (ED) team also came to his house for this reason.
Apart from Osama, his elder brother is also not getting any information from the same day, the family members say that he too has been picked up by ATS. All mobile phones of his house have been snatched by ATS, while the wives of both the brothers are pregnant and were unable to call anywhere.
Humaid called the house 3 days after this raid on September 18 at around 8 pm that he was going to surrender, shortly after that he surrendered at Kotwali.
On September 19, an Facebook video of Shahrukh, wanted in the same case, surfaced in which he was seen saying that he did not know what was in the box, which he kept at the poultry farm at Naini on September 12 or 13. The box was given to him by Humaid to keep and he had not opened it. In this video, he also said that he had received a call from ATS on morning of September 14, who had called him for questioning. Frightened by the day’s arrests, he called ATS number on same evening, no one picked up, and switched off the phone, then on the evening of 19 September he surrendered himself by going to the Kotwali. Before that he made the above statement on Facebook.
FIR has been registered against the arrested persons in case number 223/21 under 120B IPC and 18/20 UAPA. This FIR was registered by the Delhi Special Cell at Lodhi Road, Delhi on September 10, in which no one’s name is mentioned. That is, this report is not named.
On basis of above facts, conclusion of investigation:
1- Both ATS, Delhi Special has flouted the legal process on many occasions in these arrests from Allahabad, which makes these arrests and the story of the police in this context suspicious.
2- The people whom the ATS and Delhi Special Cell described as such big terrorists backed by Pakistan, they did not run away even after getting the idea of their arrest, co-operated in interrogation and surrendered themselves, this also raised questions on big claims of police.
3- Neither the name nor the place is mentioned in FIR registered against arrested people on September 10. Then how did the ATS correctly identify the accused? Didn’t understand it.
4- Discovery of explosives and weapons from Naini (Allahabad) seems suspicious, because….
(a) The FIR does not mention the place or type of explosives found or the type of weapons. Then how did the matter of explosives come to the fore in poultry farm located in Naini itself?
(b) Shahrukh in his video has talked about keeping a “box” on September 12 or 13, then how can it be registered in FIR of September 10?
(c) ATS has said that explosives were found from Naini’s Poultry Farm at Dundee, but did not display it in front of the press, as it has been doing in all other cases. It is not clear from this whether the explosive was there, then what kind and how much. How many and how were the weapons?
(d)- Whatever Shahrukh has said through his video will not be acceptable before the court. Because it cannot be said that he said that thing without any pressure. It may also happen that after registering the FIR on 10 September, the ATS got the box kept by luring or threatening Shahrukh to fabricate evidence. All this is a matter of investigation, because it is very strange that after the registration of FIR in any case, criminal act has been done. It is also strange that on September 14, Shahrukh himself called the number of ATS and they ignored him for questioning and did not arrest him, he himself surrendered on September 19 in broad daylight while making the video.
4- Zeeshan’s father told that the ATS men came to him once and after a little questioning, returned, after about half an hour they came and arrested him. If Zeeshan was indeed a terrorist working with the ISI, he should have understood the danger and could have escaped in the meantime, but he did not. Once the ATS left him, he was arrested again comfortably and took him away. This raises doubts about the police’s big Pakistani terrorist story.
5- Zeeshan was arrested by the ATS from his house in Allahabad and produced in a Delhi court, but in the process he did not take any transit remand from the Allahabad court, though it is a case between the two states. Nor did he produce it in the court within 24 hours. In this way he violated the legal process of arrest.
6- In view of these facts, as a final conclusion, the police story of these arrests from Allahabad is surrounded by a lot of serious doubts and points towards a bigger police conspiracy. The Delhi Police Special Cell is already infamous in this case. Hence these doubts cannot be ruled out which were expressed by Zeeshan’s father and Humaid’s brother in their conversation. Zeeshan’s father said that “This government is targeting educated Muslim youth, that’s why I had sent Zeeshan to Muscat, but had to come back when he lost his job in lockdown.”
Humaid’s elder brother said, “This government is an anti-Muslim government, it doesn’t want us to move forward. Three people have been picked up from our house. The arrival of the ED team also points towards this.”
For the past many years, the governments have been imprisoning innocent Muslim boys in the name of terrorism. This government work accelerates to polarize Hindu votes before the elections. The present case in which 4 people from Allahabad are currently in the custody of the police, being part of this chain cannot be ruled out. Because in the investigation, many suspicious things and facts have come out from the police, which have been mentioned above.
Therefore, there is a demand of PUCL Allahabad that the matter should be investigated by a team headed by a Judge. The arrest of innocent is very dangerous in terms of democracy and protection of human rights.
Report released by PUCL Allahabad
Manish Sinha
Secretary, Allahabad PUCL
