“The most dangerous thing for our country is that the fascist tendency has prevailed all among the politics, administration as well as our judiciary,” said Mr. Muhammad Ahmad, national secretary Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. He was presiding over the ‘Public Hearing’, organised by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Rajasthan. It is the responsibility of the government to provide justice for the citizens but when it fails to do so, its life span is shortened, he added. He was shocked over the cruelty that occurred recently during the riots, “they burn people alive and cut out foetuses from the wombs”.
A scene of the Public Hearing at Jaipur
A ‘Public Hearing’ was organised by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Rajasthan at Pink City Press Club, Jaipur, for the victims of police atrocities. Besides Mr. Muhammad Ahmad, the panel included Mr. Sawai Singh, convener Sadbhav Manch Rajasthan, Mr. Prem Krishna Sharma, senior advocate and president of the Rajasthan branch of Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Engineer Muhammad Salim, national secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and Mr. Tek Chand Rahul, retired judge and State head of Bhartiya Bodh Mahasabha.
“For the last few years, in the aftermath of bomb blasts and other terrorist activities, the police have been harassing Muslims in the name of investigations, by detaining them illegally and by convicting them under false charges and keeping them for years in jail for no crime, also by sending notices to some of them and enquiring unnecessarily, sometimes at their residences, and at other times at police stations, time and again. This harassment of the Muslim youth continues till date and should be stopped immediately as it is sheer injustice” said Engineer Khursheed Husain, state chief of JIH Rajasthan.
“Why the pointer of suspicion turns towards the Muslims only after every incident of bomb blast and why it is presumed without any evidence that there should be some Muslim person or organisation behind the incident,” said Mr. Khursheed. He said that Jamaat will organise a demonstration at national level in Delhi and will strive to contain this tyranny at political, social and judicial levels.
Engineer Muhammad Salim, central secretary of JIH and head of the Electronics and communication department at MNIT in Jaipur, said that our government treats the Muslims as if they were citizens of some other country. He was afraid that our country is heading towards destruction, as our government is following the advice of America and Israel. He was of the opinion that Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was guilty of carnage of Muslims and expected that he would soon reach his actual destination that is ‘jail’.
Seven persons, out of the 30 present in the hearing, shared their agony, how they were forcibly or by some ploy, taken to the police station, then to SOG at Jaipur and were detained for several days and some were later implicated in false cases. The victims came all over from Jaipur, Kota, Baran, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Makrana, Behter, Gangapur City, Sikar and Khandela.
Remarking as a panellist, Mr. Sawai Singh said that our police, administration and politics, all have become communal at the heart. He was of the opinion that while the courts have acquitted the victims from all charges framed against them, the police officers guilty of their illegal arrest and detention should be prosecuted accordingly.
Mr. Prem Krishna Sharma suggested formation of a high-level committee comprising police and administrative officers as well as dignified citizens, with fully transparent functioning to save the citizens from such kind of illegal arrests.
Mr. Tek Chand Rahul stated that the police don’t happen to be an independent agency, but a ‘tool’ of the state government that acts according to their instructions. He expressed his concern about the communal discrimination rampant in the courts of law in our country, recently.
Mr. Pekar Farooq, Senior advocate at the Rajasthan High Court and state president of Association for Protection of Civil Rights, elaborated the legal aspects of the cases. He is also a defence lawyer to one of the Jaipur blasts accused Sarvar. Mr. Farooq said that there is no concrete evidence against any of the accused in Jaipur bomb blast cases, but merely due to prejudice, the court is not even granting bail to the innocent people.
In the concluding session, some resolutions were passed. The Jamaat demanded that the government should apologise for ruining three and a half precious years of the acquitted, compensate them with 25 lakh rupees each, provide government jobs for those who are within the age limit and restore their services if they were in a government jobs prior to their arrest, prosecute the officials responsible for their arrest and torture and deduct the amount of compensation from their salaries. The Jamaat also demanded to stop harassment of the innocent Muslims by frequent enquiries and notices and all cases regarding the bomb blasts at various places should be brought to one place, so that speedy hearing could be conducted and the innocent may be acquitted and the guilty be punished at the earliest.