The revised edition of “Framed, Damned, Acquitted” , a report by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association was released by Upendra Baxi, Professor of Law, University of Warwick and former Vice Chancellor of Delhi University at Jamia Millia Islamia in the capital on 7 October. The revised book has eight more new cases in which 16 men accused in terror charges have been acquitted by various courts.
Manisha Sethi, member of JTSA, in her welcome address, said, “We looked at only the judgments of the courts, we relied only on court documents to show the kind of pattern that emerges if you place all the cases side by side. We found when the trial concluded in the Sessions Court or the High Court, what was found that the cases totally collapsed.” Sethi also said the court in almost all the cases had claimed that the evidence had been concocted and there were no evidence to suggest that they were affiliated with any terrorist organisations from across the border. Despite mounting evidence of such wrongdoing the errant officials have not been prosecuted.
Professor Baxi, while quoting an adage, said when faced with any problem there are only two logical solutions and that is either you become a part of the problem or you become a part of the solution. So it is important that we all should become a part of the solution but now what we can see that some Indians have become part of the problem rather than of the solution. Police are ill equipped mentally to deal with the problem and old ways of policing will simply not help. In the criminal justice system it is always important to maintain the difference between prosecution and persecution.
Mr. Ravi Nair, Director South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, said what can be done with the report is to keep freedom and democracy, liberty and some kind of due process still alive and ticking. It is useful because it is a few activist groups which have certain research figures so missing in the civil society when they talk about such issues and malfunctions. Nair urged JTSA to take the message of the report far and wide in every nook and corner of the country to serve the purpose.
Yug Mohit Chaudhry, a senior lawyer from Mumbai, said the report seeks to keep alive the torch of vigilance because eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We are living in a very difficult time and the latest lynching of a man alleged to have beef shows us the dangers we are facing. Our earlier hope that this present government, once in power, will not embark on its extremist policy, has been completely vanished. Chaudhry also explained few cases like train bombing in 2006 in Mumbai to substantiate the claim made in the report.