'Minors detained in Uttar Pradesh following widespread protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act were thrashed each time they fell asleep or wanted to relieve themselves after being supplied with abundant water, claims a shocking report released by The Quill Foundation. The report, which is yet to be made public and has seen by The Quint, is based on discoveries made by the fact-finding teams of The Quill Foundation, Citizens Against Hate, Haq: Centre for Child Rights, along with media reports.
'...'Framed As A Terrorist: My 14-Years Struggle to Prove My Innocence' is a heart wrenching book by Mohammad Aamir Khan written with noted human rights activist Nandita Haskar. The book was published in 2016, making this review a little late in day, yet I share this book review with you because 'Framed As A Terrorist....' is not only a personal account of immense struggle, pain and survival, but it is a profound and eye-opening commentary on working of Indian criminal justice system and Indian judiciary.
Davinder Singh is a man with a past. He is a self-confessed torturer. Most famously, he tortured Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013 for the 2001 Parliament Attack. Singh's own words during a subsequent interview suggest that he probably tortured many others - this was essentially his job in the SOG (special operations group) at the time. Apart from torture, he was also accused of being directly involved in terrorism. In 2004 Afzal Guru had, in writing, accused Davinder Singh of making arrangements for the parliament attack, specifically of tasking him with taking one of the attackers to Delhi and arranging his accommodation. Remarkably, Singh's possible involvement in such a major terrorist atrocity was not investigated following this accusation.
'...On December 19, when there was a call for protest against CAA, we decided to conduct a peaceful protest at Parivartan Chowk. Suddenly, a group of boys wearing skull caps came and started pelting stones. I found it strange that, even though Section 144 had been imposed, the police couldn’t detect a group of protesters carrying bricks and petrol. I can say with responsibiity that the stone-pelting was orchestrated. Another strange thing that happened was that when the arson started, someone drove a state transport bus at the protest spot. Police kept standing but didn’t take any action.
'Mohammad Faisal, a Rajasthan based lawyer, has accused the Uttar Pradesh Police of wrongful arrest during the ongoing anti-CAA protests in the state. Faisal, a lawyer based out of Kota district in Rajasthan, has claimed that he had visited Uttar Pradesh's Shamli to help people involved in anti-CAA protests, who were falsely implicated by the UP Police. He claimed that he was wrongly picked by the SOG team of Uttar Pradesh Police from inside the Kairana Court in UP's Shamli.
'“You are a Hindu, why are you friends with Muslims.” This is what the Uttar Pradesh police allegedly told Robin Verma, an activist and teacher, who was arrested in connection with the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in Lucknow on December 20, 2019. Released from the Lucknow district jail on Tuesday after being granted bail last week, Mr. Verma narrated his ordeal to The Hindu and alleged that police physically tortured and insulted him and even threatened to degrade his wife and infant daughter...'
'Afzal Guru had in an affidavit named J&K police officer Davinder Singh as setting him up to take a Parltt Attack accused "Mohammad" to Delhi, rent a flat & buy a car for him. Singh is now said to have been "caught with Hizbul terrorists on way to Delhi"... Davinder Singh admitted he tortured Afzal. Afzal was hanged for doing what Singh coerced him to do. Today Singh is said to be caught "headed to Delhi with terrorists". Who protected Singh? Who are Singh's shadowy bosses? Why wasn't Singh's role in Parltt Attack ever probed?...'
'A bedridden Maulana Asad Raza Hussaini, 66, both arms and both legs bandaged, “sobs in his sleep” and refuses to “show his face” to visiting relatives because, his family says, he cannot get over his humiliation by the police who stripped and tortured him in custody. The police also detained and assaulted almost all the maulana’s 100-odd students from the Saadat hostel-cum-orphanage in Muzaffarnagar town, many of them minors and most of them orphans, local people said.
'A young doctoral scholar lay calmly on his hospital bed in Aligarh. I could not have mustered his courage and equanimity. Just two nights earlier, his palm had been blown off by a lethal missile fired by the police. Doctors amputated his hand to save his life. His main concern at this point was how he would break this news to his mother, and if she would survive it. A little earlier, I met a young law student of the Aligarh Muslim University, just 19 years old, his broken hand in a cast.
'Arrested Assam RTI activist Akhil Gogoi alleged he was subjected to “torture” in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). “I am being tortured. I appeal to the people to not suspend the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) but continue them,” he told journalists while being produced in a court of the NIA in Guwahati on Tuesday. He was brought to the city in a flight from Jorhat for production in the NIA court. The court remanded him in ten days’ NIA custody.
