NHRC issues notices to MHA and Delhi Police on wrongful confinement of Aamir for 14 years

New Delhi, Mar 11: The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of a “distressing media report” carrying the story of Mohammad Amir who was released after 14 yearlong incarceration in jail, destroying his youth due to wrongful arrest on the 27th February,1998, from Old Delhi as an alleged 'terrorist' when he had just turned 18.

While Amir remained confined to a solitary high security cell in Delhi's Tihar Jail, he had little idea that his father had passed away in penury and his mother got paralysis suffering a brain haemorrhage and losing speech amidst a social boycott. He was released in January 2012 after the trial court had acquitted him in 18 of the 20 cases.

On Sunday night Hindi News Channel AajTak, broadcasted a documentary on him in its crime report –Vardaat – on “An innocent Muslim spends 14 years in prison.” The programmed was repeated on Monday as well.

The Commission has observed that the issue raises serious questions on the functioning of the police and if true, the contents of the press report amount to grave violation of human rights of the victim Amir who was implicated in false cases.

Mr. Justice D. Murugesan, Member, NHRC in the notices issued to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Delhi Police Commissioner, under case no 1361/30/9/2014, has asked them to submit detailed reports in the matter within four weeks. Further, the Delhi Police Commissioner has been directed to submit entire record of the 12 cases filed against Amir along with his report.

Aamir expressed his happiness on the suo motu cognizance of the NHRC and hoped that “something concrete” comes out of such actions. He reminded that along with a delegation led by Prakash Karat, he had met the President of India also and letter then Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, but all he got so far was assurances.

He reiterated the long held demands of rights activists that there has been policy of even rehabilitating former terrorists if they shun violence in Punjab and North-Eastern states, why not then formulate some kind of policy for the rehabilitation of youth arrested wrongfully.

It was a share coincidence that the day the Documentary was broadcast, Aamir, became a father and has been blessed with a daughter. He said that if it was not for civil society groups it would have been difficult for him to even earn a living. Aamir has been working in Shabnam Hashmi led ANHAD for two years now.

Md. Amir Khan, a resident of Azad Market in Old Delhi, was charged in 20 cases of bomb blasts in and around Delhi in 1998. He was barely 18 years old he was picked up on that fateful night of February 20, 1998. “It 's just impossible for me to describe the physical torture I was made to go through, after which I was threatened and forced to sign few papers, which I later got to know, were my confession statements,” he had told TCN after his acquittal.

The NHRC letter details the events of his arrest and court trial based on the media report.

Amir left his small home near Azad Market in Old Delhi for Pakistan on the 12th December, 1997 from to visit his sister who was married there and returned on the 13th February, 1998. A fortnight later, he was arrested on the charges of executing the bomb blasts subsequent to his training in Pakistan. The last of the bomb blast was in October, 1997 i.e. two months before he went on his first and last trip to Pakistan.

Amir, with the charges of murder, terrorism and waging war against the nation, was named the main accused in 20 low intensity bomb blasts executed between December 1996 and October 1997 in Delhi, Rohtak, Sonepat and Ghaziabad. Five of these explosions had occurred during a single evening in places as wide apart as Sadar Bazar in Delhi and Ghaziabad, many miles away.

The charge sheet filed in April 1998 said that Amir had been trained in Pakistan by the dreaded Abdul Karim 'Tunda gang'. It also mentioned that Amir and co-accused Shakeel collaborated to make bombs out of a factory rented by Shakeel in Pilakhua in Ghaziabad.

However, Shakeel was discharged before the start of hearing in ten cases but in 2009 he was found hanging from the ceiling of his barrack in Dasna Jail. The then Superintendent of Dasna Jail, V K Singh was charged with Shakeel's murder.

Amir was acquitted in 18 of the 20 terror cases for lack of evidence against him as the prosecution failed to produce a single witness in any of the cases connecting him to the blasts. The police produced no witness to the arrest and the public witnesses allegedly present during the Pilakhua raid flatly refused to support the prosecution during the trial. Chandrabhan, the prosecution's main witness on whose evidence the entire terror case rested stated that he had never seen Amir and he was taken to the Chankya Puri Police Station where he was made to sign on blank papers.

The trial court had acquitted him in 17 cases on the ground that 'there is absolutely no incriminating evidence against the accused.' The Delhi High Court in one of the three cases that went into appeal observed 'the prosecution has miserably failed to adduce any evidence to connect the accused appellant with the charges framed, much less prove them'. He was released in January 2012.