JOIN USCommunalism has become rampant among police forces across the country, said civil rights activist Prashant Bhushan on Monday at the screening of a documentary film on seven men wrongly accused in terror cases.
“We have several instances to prove that police have been victimising innocent Muslims in terror investigations. They have crossed the line by framing and fabricating stories to cover up their failure of not being able to locate the culprits behind such activities,” said Bhushan. He added that such instances had increased over the years because of the lack of a system to detect such false stories.
“The court has the authority but is not using it to punish the police officer who has fabricated stories even after it has been made public,” he said.
The documentary titled After the Storm was screened on the eve of the Gujarat genocide in 2002 which resulted in killing of nearly 1500 innocent citizens. It narrated the stories of seven former terror accused set free by various law courts across India. They include Mukhtar Ahmed from Bangalore, Mohammed Fassiuddin Ahmed, Harith Ansari, Shaik Abdul Kaleem and Moutasim Billah from Hyderabad, Umar Farooque from Ahmedabad, and Musarrat Hussain alias “Bobby” from Kolkata.
Subhradeep Chakravorty, a documentary maker, said his main aim was to bring out how false accusations ruin people's lives. The documentary highlighted that the victims are stricken with poverty.
Forty nine-year-old Mukhtar Ahmed was in retail business of readymade garments in Bangalore till he was picked by the Central Bureau of Investigation on September 3, 1993.
He spent six years in jail due to the false charges levied on him. Though he has been able to achieve some success in starting afresh his struggle for survival remains.
Twenty-eight-year old Umar Farooque was picked by the Ahmedabad police on May 11, 2006 in the conspiracy case of killing right wing Hindutva leaders.
He was arrested on June 9, 2006. After spending over four years in jail, he was released on July 29, 2010 but his life is not back on track.