Mustafabad youth, awaiting surgery for wounds sustained in police action during Delhi riots , summoned by cops for questioning; alleges mistreatment

On Wednesday, Mohammad Shamsuddin, a resident of Mustafabad, one of the many localities affected in the Delhi riots in February this year, got an unexpected call from the police. According to Shamsuddin, the police told his son to go to Dayalpur police station for inquiry and investigation into the Delhi riots. His son — weak and pale — is still limping from the untreated injury near his groin area that he sustained from the riots. [caption id=“attachment_8114241” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of a man sitting behind his burnt car in Delhi’s Chand Bagh, one of the sites where violence took place in Feb. Image/Ismat Ara[/caption] As reported earlier by _Firstpost_ , Shamsuddin’s 22-year-old son Mohammad Imran had been seriously injured during the police firing in Mustafabad on 25 February. According to doctors at Mustafabad’s Al Hind hospital, where he was initially treated, Imran’s scrotum and penis were ripped apart, and his anal region had suffered severe injuries. He was shifted to LNJP hospital later. This is how the initial initial described the injury : “15 cm long, from scrotum to anal region” - referring him to the surgery department at LNJP hospital. A welder by profession, Imran was to get married in May. Before his follow up at LNJP hospital for his surgery, the lockdown due to coronavirus was announced and his surgery has been indefinitely pushed date. “Beta, you have to go to the police station,” Shamsuddin told Imran, after the latter asked his father about the phone call. “But I didn’t do anything…” Imran said. According to his father, Imran was summoned by the police for questioning this Thursday. “He was kept in the jail from 10 am till 11 in the night. He couldn’t even sit due to his injury. He was very tense and was shivering. They didn’t give him food or water,” said Shamsuddin, “but they have left him for now, but they might call him anytime and arrest him. We are already short of money, and now they want to take away my eldest son away from me who is innocent.” On 25 February, Imran had come out of the house at around 5 pm to see what the commotion was all about. The riots in the North East part of Delhi had already started. That’s when “something” hit his private parts and he started bleeding profusely. “My entire sack burst, and my bleeding wouldn’t stop. It was the worst day of my life,” Imran recalled. One of the breadwinners of the family, Imran has four brothers and three sisters. Shamsuddin, a carpenter, said that either a bullet hit him, or a tear gas shell burst between his legs. He was standing unarmed when the police started shooting and releasing tear gas to quell the crowd. [caption id=“attachment_8300211” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Mohammad Imran, who was grievously injured in the Feb Delhi riots, was summoned by the Dayalpuri police station for questioning. Image procured by Ismat Ara[/caption] One of Imran’s brother, Mohammad Ibrahim said, “My brother hasn’t yet undergone the surgery. The doctors at LNJP had suggested surgery after looking at his condition. The surgery kept getting delayed and couldn’t happen due to the lockdown. But now he was at home, resting and somehow recovering from the injury, but the police wouldn’t let him be. They called him and harassed him. They said things like, “Tu danga kar raha tha?” We are people who earn on a daily basis, we have no interest in rioting.” Speaking about his interaction with the police, Imran said that they “gave me two options” when he reached the Dayalpur Police Station on Thursday. “Either tell us the names of four people who were rioting or go to jail. But I didn’t know any names. They still kept pressuring me into confessing something I didn’t do. If I had something to hide, I would have run away instead of going to the police station to cooperate in the investigation. They kept asking me what had hit me. But I didn’t know what had hit me, it was either a bullet or a tear gas shell. They started accusing me of rioting. They started saying that they have photos of me indulging in rioting. If they had such photos, why couldn’t they arrest me then and there? I wouldn’t have been released,” Imran said. Even though Imran has been released for now, fear of getting arrested still looms large. “After talking to me for some time, they put me in a small jail in the station. They kept delaying my release, trying to break my morale. They were trying to scare me. They wrote down my address and said they will arrest me if my name comes up again.” Ved Prakash, Station House Officer of Dayalpur police station said, “If somebody has got injuries during the riots, it is established that he was very much at the spot. Now, it is our work to verify in what manner he got that injury. Why did this person come to that spot? We are verifying facts, why was this person outside during an ongoing riot, what was the necessity, and in what circumstances did this person get those injuries. Either he is a victim, or he could be an accused, too. There’s a possibility that those who got injured were rioting." He further added, “We are verifying the role of each and every injured person so we can take required action.” According to the SHO, at least 95 people were injured during the riots in and around the area of Mustafabad. All of them are being called in for questioning.