Coinciding with the recent acquittal of Delhi-based Mohammad Amir Khan who spent 14 years in jail, a document released here says since 1997, some 300 cases have been registered against hundreds of Muslim youth, in places where no terrorist incidents or violence had taken place.
“In many cases, implicated youth like Amir have been acquitted. In a few cases, there have been convictions, but in these cases too, the appeals are pending before the higher judiciary,” says the document released at a day-long seminar of 40 Muslim groups, organised by All India Milli Council. Madhya Pradesh tops the list with 118 cases registered in various police stations, followed by 89 in Maharashtra. Gujarat has filed just 10 cases during the period. The speakers believed the filing of cases, along with arrest of Muslim youth in terrorist cases, were done due to communal reasons. The 300 cases compiled were registered without any terrorist or violent incident, the evidence being generally flimsy and doubtful. Three hundred cases listed by the organisation as an illustration of the arrests for what it claimed were “doubtful crimes”, are from across the country – Indore, Ujjain, Nagda and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, in Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, and Bihar. The trend started in 1997 in Khajrana in Madhya Pradesh and has travelled to deep south in Kerala, said the speakers.