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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Damages for framed Muslim youth on table -Imran Ahmed Siddiqui

Damages for framed Muslim youth on table -Imran Ahmed Siddiqui

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published Published on Jul 17, 2013   modified Modified on Jul 17, 2013
-The Telegraph


The Centre is considering a proposal to financially compensate Muslims acquitted in terror cases, a move that could attract accusations of "minority appeasement" in the lead-up to next year's general election.

Many Muslim youths have been acquitted of terror charges in the past few years, with the courts in several instances rapping the police for framing them.

"These youths' lives are in a shambles because of the terrorist tag. It's the government's responsibility to help their rehabilitation," said an official of the minority affairs ministry, which recently sent the proposal to the Union home ministry.

Its final draft is to be soon forwarded to the Prime Minister's Office for approval.

The ministry has also suggested a task force of bureaucrats to review all pending terror cases where Muslim suspects have been in jail custody for years, minority affairs minister K. Rahman Khan said.

The details are to be worked out but the idea is that if the task force thinks a particular case has been concocted out of nothing, it will inform the court about it.

"There's a growing perception among the community that its youths are being victimised. Most suspects are released after five, seven or 10 years but their lives are ruined. I'll write to the government to set up the task force," the minister added.

A few months ago, Khan had written to home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to set up fasttrack courts to speed up long-drawn or delayed terror cases. He had also urged Shinde to prosecute police officers who had been rapped in court for framing people in terror cases.

The ministry is collecting details of Muslim youths acquitted of terror charges across the country.

One of them, Mohammed Amir Khan, was 18 when Delhi police branded him a terrorist. The son of a toyshop owner was accused of masterminding 19 bombings in Delhi, Rohtak, Sonepat and Ghaziabad between December 1996 and October 1997.

He was acquitted last year after spending 14 years in a solitary cell in Tihar and other state jails.

Acquitting him in one case after another, the judge said: "Suspicion, however strong it may be, does not take the place of evidence."

Amir is now free but the terrorist tag has jeopardised his life. His ailing father died while arranging money to fight his case, and a brain haemorrhage has left his mother paralysed and unable to speak.

"There are many such youths in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad and Maharasthra," the ministry official said.

He cited the Malegaon mosque bombing of September 2006. Mumbai police had arrested nine Muslim youths in the case but the National Investigation Agency, which later took over the probe, has chargesheeted four suspected members of a Right-wing Hindu group. The Muslim suspects are on bail.

Last year, the National Commission for Minorities chairperson, Wajahat Habibullah, had complained to the Prime Minister about Muslim youths being framed in terror cases and sought prosecution of the guilty officers. Manmohan Singh promised to look into the issue.

Manisha Sethi, president of the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association, a civil rights group, welcomed the idea of the government compensating the framed and acquitted suspects.

"We will publish a report on this in September to expose the police and their evil designs. The government needs to set up special courts for fast trial in such cases," the Jamia Millia Islamia teacher said.

"These youths need proper rehabilitation. Their families have been ostracised by relatives and they face a huge problem trying to lead a normal life even after being proved innocent."

In a dossier titled "Framed, Damned and Acquitted", the Jamia teachers' association had last year highlighted the injustice to 16 Muslim youths, acquitted after Delhi police apparently picked them up at random and framed them in terror cases.


The Telegraph, 17 July, 2013, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130717/jsp/nation/story_17125860.jsp#.UeZO-qzcjco


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