Khwaja Yunus Case Shows Police Cover-up

On Dec 25, 2002, weeks after an explosion in Ghatkopar, a software engineer was arrested in circumstances his brother describes as “bizarre”. The police had come looking for him without knowing his name or what he looked like. Syed Khwaja Yunus Sayed Ayub, then 27, was allegedly beaten up in custody and died of injuries. Nearly a decade on, his family’s sustained battle for justice has led to the Bombay High Court ordering the government to pay Rs 20 lakh as compensation. Along the way, it exposed attempts at a cover-up by the police, who had declared Yunus had escaped, and the ineffectiveness of their investigations into the blast. Yunus, who graduated from the MGM College in Aurangabad, had worked 18 months in Dubai when he came on a month’s holiday to his native Parbhani for the month of Ramadhan. Three others, all in their late twenties were arrested along with Yunus. They were subsequently acquitted by a trial court. According to a statement by Mateen, Yunus vomited blood before he died of the injuries in the police lock-up. There has been no trace of Yunus since then.