Manisha Sethi (JTSA), Shabnam Hashmi (Anhad) and Taquee Ahmed (Naquee Ahmed’s brother) held a press conference at Anhad office today [18 January 2012].
The Case
Taquee and Naquee Ahmed live in Abul Fazal, New Delhi. Taquee runs a shop, Luggage Mart, on the Kalindi Kunj-Sarita Vihar road. Their two elder brothers live in Mumbai, where they run a workshop to produce trolley bags. They hail from Darbhanga, where their parents still live.
Chronology of events:
9th December:
Razi Ahmed, resident of Mumbai, arrived in Delhi from Kolkata. He was visiting his brothers, Naquee and Taquee Ahmed, who live in Abul Fazal. He went to the parking and took an auto when two men forced themselves into the auto, sitting on each side. Razi panicked but the two men told him that they belonged to the Intelligence. They went to Shaheen Bagh bus stop. Taquee came to the bus stop and the two Intelligence men demanded that they produce Naquee before them. Taquee demanded to see their ID. After much haggling, they showed their IDs. Their names were Lalit Mohan Negi and Hriday Bhushan (belonging to Special Cell). Naquee was called to the bus stop after that. Lalit and Bhushan asked him about one Gayur Jamali (he was arrested in November 2011). Naquee said that he had social relations with him from the time they lived in Darbhanga (Bihar). They asked him if he had helped two men get accommodation in Bombay. Naquee said yes, that he had. He did not know about Gayur’s activities or intentions—knowing him socially he had helped him by outing him in touch with a broker in Bombay. The two men then asked him to cooperate with their investigation and Naquee agreed.
Naquee and his two brothers went to the Special Cell office in Lodhi Colony, where Naquee was made to talk to Gayur.
10th December:
Naquee was taken to Bombay by the 10:30 Go Air flight. Naquee helped them identify the locality in which the house had been rented. It also turned out that the Special Cell had rented a place in the area to keep a watch.
They returned on 13th December.
Over the next few days, between 15th December and 7th January, Taquee and Naquee visited Special Cell office several times. They wanted to check their mobile details so both brothers left their phones in the office. Naquee went to retrieve the phones. They were both tired of the daily harassment and tension owing to these enquiries.
7th January:
Naquee received a call saying that both occupants of the rented flat in Mumbai had returned and Naquee was needed for identifying them.
8th January: Naquee was taken to Mumbai on the 4.30 Rajdhani train.
9th January:
They reached Mumbai. Naquee called in the evening and said that most of the work had been completed and that he would return tomorrow.
In the night, at about 11:30, the Maharashtra ATS came to Naquee’s brother’s workshop and picked up his elder brother Rafi. When Naquee came to know of this, he called up the Special Cell officer and asked why his brother was being picked up when it was known to the Special Cell that he was not involved in any criminal or terror activity. The Special Cell officer informed him that it was the ATS and not the Special Cell, which had picked up his brother. There was nothing they could do about it as the two agencies did not get along well. They asked him to come over to the house the Special Cell had rented in the ‘target area’.
Naquee then called up Nadeem, who used to live in the workshop to get an update about the situation in the workshop. Nadeem told him to come to hotel Sagar. Unknown to Naquee, the ATS had nabbed Nadeem and had laid a trap for Naquee through him. When Naquee reached the hotel, he too was nabbed.
At about 1.30 in the morning, ATS returned to the workshop and picked up Razi bhai and a worker.
11th January:
Razi and Rafi were released.
13th January: Rafi picked up by ATS again.
17th January:
The Ahmad’s residence in Darbhanga (village Deora Bandauli) was visited by the Maharashtra ATS late at night. A motorcycle belonging to his elder brother was seized by the ATS saying that it was stolen. The elderly parents of the Ahmads are fear struck.
Sections 419, 420 have been slapped on Naquee. Rafi has been released this evening. In effect this has been an illegal detention.
At the time of writing this report, the ATS, Mumbai has landed at Taquee’s shop on Kalindi Kunj Road and is demanding to see him. Taquee is nervous that he might be picked up as well.
4 people from ATS including an ACP then landed up at Anhad where the press conference was just getting over, they interrogated Taquee for over an hour and then took him to Shaheen Bagh to pick up Naquee’s laptop.
This is a case where the competition between two investigative agencies—Special Cell of the Delhi Police and the Maharashtra ATS—has claimed more innocents. The fight against terror has been reduced to victimization, harassment of Muslims and violation of the due processes of law. Anti-terror agencies pick up and detain people at will, in this free for all race to prove their anti-terror credentials.
We demand an immediate stop to this sort of terrorization of Muslim youth and their families. The process of investigation and questioning must be transparent and the due processes must be strictly adhered to. All those arrested be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours and illegal detentions and interrogations in such detention must be strictly punished.
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