Amir was the only son of his poor parents, staying in a one room house in a remote area in Old Delhi. It was the fateful night of 20th February, 1998 which proved to be the worst nightmare for him and his tiny family when all of a sudden he was arrested by the police and was taken away blind folded.
When his eyes were opened, he found himself in the dark and incommodious confinement of Tihar Jail in Delhi. He was implicated in a total of 20 terror cases which included terrorism, murder, rebellion and war against his nation. He was charged for carrying out bomb blasts at 20 different places in the short span of ten months, i.e, from December 1996 to October 1997. After spending 14 years of his life in a solitary confinement of jail, the court has freed him from charges in 18 cases and he was released in January, only to realise that his family was completely ruined in his absence.
Unable to bear the pain of his separation and arrest, his father died of a broken heart and his mother had lost her speech. He is 33 years of age at present. The fateful story of this innocent lad, Aamir has been lately brought to the attention of the media. Unfortunately and as expexcted, the main stream media did not cover his story since it would be contrary to their efforts at demonizing Islam and muslims and creating an environment of Islamophobia. Or they must have concluded that whatever he went through was in accordance with State policy of minority oppression.
However, a reporter of the english daily, the Hindu, Vidya Subramanyam in the edition of 7th February and Indrani Basu of Times Of India on 9th February, have published the story with some new twists and have regarded it as an uncommon. The story was very painful and as much hilarious due to the accusations and charges which the police had forced upon a student of standard tenth.
I have never seen a case similar to Aamir’s in my 35 years of law career, says the lawyer of Aamir, ND Pancholi, who is a law expert and a member of citizen rights. However this is nothing new with the Muslims and numerous such cases have already taken place and are being continued. A lot of Muslim youth have become the prey to the ferocity of Police and Intelligence Agencies.
This chain of incidents is unending, but the situation of Aamir is completely different. The accusations and proofs against him are nothing short of being hilarious. These proofs are such that not even a single good hearted citizen will be able to even believe in them. According to a popular Urdu Newspaper “Daawat”, the first injustice was done to him by the police, the people on the chairs of justice without noticing him, did the second iniquity, the lawyers rejecting his case was the third, and the fourth injustice was done by the media who refused to give any attention to the case.
There was a time when the world was ruled by the adage ” Innocent, until proven guilty ” and in some very rare cases “Guilty, until proven innocent”. However, in todays Islamophobic world in general, and the Indian media and police in particular, the rule for Muslims is, “Guilty even if proven innocent”.
Greater than all the above, and the least expected injustice was done to Aamir by his own community and society. As the news of Aamir’s arrest spread, his relatives, friends, neighbors and other people of the locality boycotted his family instead of coming to their help. Aamir’s family is not the only one to undergo such a social boycott, it happens in almost all of such cases. Whenever a person from the Muslim community is accused with anything of this sort, the entire community stays away from the person’s family.
And this becomes the main reason for the victims to lose hope and it becomes unbearable for the family of the accused. This situation is found in almost the entire nation. The police charges the victim on mere doubts, where as the society boycotts the person with such an intensity that it is unexplainable. The children of the oppressed are thrown out of their schools. These things are done by the people to save themselves from coming under the radar of the police, but such acts from the people of the community gives the wrong message to the entire nation that the muslim community is weak and cowardly.
That the media and the police can say anything about and do anything to the muslims without fear of any legal retaliation.
The state of affairs is so bad that the arrest of any innocent Muslim youth or a simple enquiry in somebody’s home is enough to generate terror within us. It is unbelievable that these are the people belonging to the community who have faith in Allah and the judgment day and who claim to fear none but the Almighty.
The arrest of such innocent Muslims, leading to the destruction of their careers and their families, doesnot mean that the members of community have to play a complicit a role in such oppression and injustice! Muslim leaders and sociad groups should first and foremost take notice of such cases. If the accused are indeed capable of carrying out the accusations leveled against them or the state agencies have irrefutable evidence of the involvement of the subject person is such actrivities, then it is the duty of every citizen to cooperate with the police and bring such people to justice.
But in situations contrary to this, as is the case almost 99% of the time, it is obligatory upon Muslims to defend members of their community, show their unity and solidarity, and provide legal help to all such victims. The building up of confidence and resolution in the Muslim community is the utmost need of these times. The Muslim localities should be educated that any person cannot be regarded as criminal just with flimsy accusations or suspicions of the police unless and until guilty of such an act in the court of law. Even after this, the doors of higher courts will still be open.
The current behaviour of the Muslim society, wherein the entire community distances itself from members of their own community who are nothing but victims of oppression will certainly lead to extreme negative consequences for the entire community in the long term. It is high time for the Muslims of India to wake up and unite as citizens of India, empowered by its Constitution and defend their fundamental right to live peacefully and fight against any oppression and injustice that is done against them.
–Source: Sahilonline.org