Waiting for Justice

“After spending 23 years in jail, I was just like a living corpse. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sleep. It was only on seeing my old mother and hugging her I could believe that I was still alive…” saying this Nisar Uddin Ahmed broke down in an interview given to NDTV’s Ravish Kumar. Nisar Ahmed is one of the many Muslim youths who have been acquitted in some serious cases after a long drawn legal battle. Along with some others he was booked for bomb blasts in trains carried out on the occasion of Babri Masjid demolition anniversary. He was jailed when he was merely 20 years old. Two months later, his elder brother was also arrested in the same case. He was later granted bail on health reasons. The fight to prove the innocence of two of his sons jailed as terrorists was daunting for Nisar’s father.

    

Now out of jail after 23 years, Nisar Ahmed feels that an entire generation has skipped him. Young children in his family are grown up and have families of their own. Recalling his harrowing experience, he talks of torture and being made to sign fake confessions. Custodial confessions were the sole evidence against both the brothers and later they were quashed by Supreme Court. While free at last, he feels that picking up the broken pieces of his life will be a difficult task. The age when he could get an education or a job was spent waiting for justice in the darkness of jails.

However Nisar Ahmed’s case is not the only one. In 2012 Mohammad Amir Khan, another Muslim youth picked up from Delhi, was acquitted after 14 long years. He recently penned his experience in a book titled “Framed as a Terrorist”. His is a harrowing tale of 14 years of torture and confinement during which he had not sure whether he will ever walk free. Amir’s is one of the many families that live in the narrow lanes of Old Delhi commonly known as Dilli 6. His elder sister was married to a person in Karachi.

His life took a dramatic turn when he decided to go to Karachi to visit his elder sister. One Mr Gupta visited him and asked him if he wanted to do something for his country. All 20 years of age, a patriotic urge ensured that Amir readily agreed. He was given a camera and asked to click some photographs of certain places in Karachi. He was also asked to bring back some documents. While Amir managed to click the pictures with difficulty, he was too scared to bring back the documents. The strict customs check point scared him that if he gets caught he will land in a Pakistani jail and languish there.

But on his return to India, a terrible fate awaited him. The person called Guptaji was furious on Amir’s inability in bringing back the documents. He threatened that Amir will have to pay a dear price for his failure. And Amir was picked up in February, 1998 from a by-lane in Dilli 6. He was taken to a torture chamber. He recounts his days and nights of torture: of being stripped naked, boxed, kicked, forced to hear anti-Muslim abuses, threatened that his parents would be framed in false charges. He was forced to sign some blank sheets and fill up a diary with statements which he did not understand. These were the documents used to frame him in 19 cases of terror.

During his stay in jail, the 9/11 attack on the twin towers and the attack on Indian Parliament took place. It worsened the situation for Amir and many others like him. He had to face Islamophobic attacks in jails. He even felt that the kind judge turned cold towards him. Despite his young age he was often kept in solitary confinement and denied basic amenities like watching films or taking part in physical exercises.

During his confinement he lost his big support, his father. By the time he was out of jail, his mother was bed ridden. He was 32 years of age when he was acquitted. He lost 14 years of precious time in which he could have acquired a decent education and gotten a job. However his story is also a story of hope. Despite his ordeal, he did not give up his faith in democracy and justice. Alia, his childhood sweatheart and a constant source of support, waited for him for 14 years. Married to Alia and blessed with a daughter Anusha, he is working with ANHAD and trying to fix his broken life.

The cases of Nisar Ahmed and Mohammad Amir Khan point to a bigger problem that the nation is facing. Lodged in Indian jails is a large number of undertrials waiting for justice. Often less than 30 years of age, majority of such undertrials belong to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes or religious minorities. While two-third people in the jail are undertrials, Muslims are often over represented. In many states their representation is much more than their share of population. One more thing which is often neglected is the trauma that the family of such undertrials goes through. Accused are treated like convicts. Social stigma, boycotts are common. Both the families of Nisar and Amir suffered terribly. The mental stress that the families had to go through cannot be discounted for.

Such a large number of people languishing in jails point to the failure of the justice delivery mechanism. The English proverb “Justice delayed is justice denied” proves to be true when undertrials are in jail for longer periods than what the punishment for their crime originally entails. Lack of legal aid, delays in courts productions, unawareness of the convicts about their own rights etc lead to such ordeal.

Murali Karnam in an article “Condition of the Undertrials in India: Problems and Solutions in EPW Vol 51 No 3, says that many undertrials are in jail because they are unable to get lawyers. Legal aid for all is still a distant dream. While statements like equality before law is made – equal protection of law is mediated by property relations. The unequal conditions of property, caste, community determine the fate of citizens and the value of law.

According to National Register of Crimes Bureau (NCRB), of the 82190 Muslim prisoners in jails, 59550 are undertrials till the end of 2014. Even after frequent reminders from the Supreme Court, the condition of the undertrials have not improved much. Too much pressure on judiciary is also a cause of lack of speedy trials. What seems more subversive of justice is that the policemen who frame and torture innocent people as terrorists and book them under grave acts are rarely punished. While the Judiciary asked the Delhi government why Mohammad Amir Khan should not be compensated for the years he lost, no amount of money can make up for what he went through.