Nashik court acquits 11 in 25-year-old TADA Act case: Blot of being traitors now erased, say former accused

A Nashik court last week acquitted eleven people who were facing terror charges in a 25-year-old case under the now repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA Act).

Sharif Sheikh, the lawyer for the accused, said that this may have been the last case that was decided under the Act. The legislation itself was repealed over 20 years ago, in 1995, after widespread allegations of abuse.

The accused had spent over four months behind bars in 1994, after which they were released on bail. While nine of them were from the town of Bhusaval in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, two others were from Mumbai.

‘Found out about my daughter’s birth through the media’

Speaking to Firstpost, Ashfaque Mir, one of the accused, said, “After the judge pronounced the verdict on 27 February, all of us had tears of joy for at least an hour. When the case was filed 25 years ago, I was a young man. Now, I have children who are married.”

Mir recalled, “When I was arrested, my son was one-and-a-half years old, and my wife was pregnant with our second child. After my daughter was born, some newspapers had carried entirely baseless reports that I was unhappy because it was a girl, and not a boy. It was through those reports that I found out about her birth.”

Mir is a doctor by profession and runs a clinic in south Mumbai. He had been accused of having financed a trip of some other accused to Kashmir for acquiring terror training. The police had alleged that the eleven persons had conspired to avenge the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and some of them had acquired training for terrorist activities.

Socio-religious NGO Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had arranged for legal representation for the accused in the case, including Mir.

The accused, out of their total period of incarceration, spent 24 days in police custody. Mir said, “During that time, we faced a lot of physical and mental torture. The police personnel would repeatedly ask where we had ‘received training’, or where we had ‘concealed the bombs.’ What answer could we give them? We had done nothing of the sort. They had also written our ‘confessional statements’ and wanted us to sign them, which we refused to do.”

Among the more contentious provisions of the TADA Act, 1987, was one which stated that confessional statements made by accused persons to the police were admissible as evidence, provided they were made to an officer not lower in rank than a Superintendent of Police. Ordinarily, only confessions made before magistrates are admissible as evidence, not those made before police officers.

Mir remarked, “Often, people become much more serious about life after spending time in prison. Some who were not religious earlier become so after a jail term. I, too, was a carefree lad before I went to jail. After I got out, I was a changed man – I became sincere about my work, and about life in general.”

Recalling the 1992-93 riots in Mumbai, he said, “The situation was very tense at that time. Our house is on the ‘border’ between the Hindu and Muslim-dominated parts of our locality. It had become something of a refugee camp, as many people seeking protection from angry mobs would stay in our house for some time till things would become calmer.”

He added, “However, in my social circle, there were no feelings of animosity between communities. In fact, most of my friends are Hindus.”

‘Blot has been erased’

Jameel Ahmed Khan, another man accused in the case, said, “Due to the allegations made by the police, there was a public perception that we were traitors, and wanted to disturb the peace in the country. The things that the police accused of doing – carrying out bomb blasts at the railway station and other public places in Bhusaval – were such that we could not have even imagined them. Through the court’s verdict, this blot has now been wiped off.”

Khan said, “My arrest caused a lot of hardship in particular to my mother, who suffered from paralysis. I used to run a poultry farm earlier, but my business was destroyed because of the time I spent in jail.”

After his incarceration, Khan was unable to restart his business, and he now works as a labourer. He said, “Even getting work as a labourer was very difficult. People did not want to employ me because of the allegations I faced. After all, they also had the fear of the police. Thankfully, there were some people who ensured that I got a job.”

He added, “I appeal to parties who claim to speak for the rights of minorities to take some steps so that people who are jailed on false charges in this manner get justice.”

Recalling the situation in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, Khan said, “The town of Bhusaval remained peaceful at that time, as it had always been since independence. However, we read about riots in Mumbai and elsewhere. In Bhusaval, while there was no violence, some sections of the media played a part in stoking hatred among different communities.”

Filing of chargesheet, judges’ transfers caused delay.

The chargesheet in this case was filed six years after the FIR was registered, leading to the case dragging on. Further, the accused had also contended that the TADA Act was not applicable in the case, and the resolution of this issue added to the delay.

Lawyer Sharif Sheikh further said, “For designating a particular judge as a TADA judge, a notification was required. On several occasions, the notification would get delayed, by which time the judge would get transferred. It was only after the Supreme Court in 2016 gave a time frame for the matter to be completed that the case was heard and decided.”