Mohammed Aamir Khan, living in dread after acquittal

Mohammed Aamir Khan, living in dread after acquittal

Sidharth BhatiaUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 04:19 PM IST
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Despite Indians being proud of their democracy and rule of law, it is a sad fact of life that there are several miscarriages of justice and there is no way to correct or compensate for them. Instances of innocent people being picked up, held for a long time in jail and then finally released because they are found innocent, with neither monetary help nor rehabilitation, is one such example.

MOHAMMED Aamir Khan’s story is tragic enough, but more important is that there are few checks and balances to ensure that such things are not repeated. There is no way to make good anyone who has lost 14 years of his life, but surely there could be some monetary help to put them back on their feet? And what kind of systems can be put in place so that innocent people are not just picked up and charged with false allegations, which they could take years to disprove?

One had heard of such instances, but it is only when one meets someone who has actually been through this situation that the sheer horror of it all becomes apparent. Earlier this week I got an opportunity to meet and interview, on stage, Mohammed Aamir Khan, who was held in jail for nearly 14 years on charges of terrorism. One by one, all charges against him proved false – not a single witness identified him – and he is now out of jail, (two cases are still pending) but his story holds a mirror to our society.

Aamir has written a book, Framed as a Terrorist: My 14-Year Struggle to Prove My Innocence,  which we discussed at an event hosted by Literature Live in Mumbai. It tells his story in a straightforward but compelling way; listening to him recount the episodes contained in the book is quite a different experience. His eloquence, his lack of bitterness and his oft-stated commitment to secularism and Indian democratic values won him many fans in the audience; there was not a dry tear in the house as he recounted how he longed from his mother to call him ‘beta’. She had been struck with a paralytic attack when he was in jail and never recovered.

His story, in short is as follows: When he had obtained a visa to go to Pakistan to meet his married sister, he was accosted by an Indian official who said he was from some intelligence agency. Introducing himself as Gupta, he asked Aamir, then just 19, to take some photographs there and collect a package of papers to bring back. Aamir never got a chance to take the pictures, but the package was duly delivered to him. At the border in Pakistan, he saw all passengers boarding to the train back to India being frisked in detail. In a state of panic, lest the papers be discovered on him, he threw the papers away.

In Delhi, Gupta surfaced and asked for the papers. Aamir said he did not have them. Gupta refused to believe him and threatened him with dire consequences. Soon after, one evening, when he was walking down the road, he was picked up in a van, taken to a dark spot and stripped. He was then severely interrogated – we know what that implies – and produced before the magistrate, eight days later. This was strictly illegal, but since there was no record of him being arrested, the police (or whoever was responsible) could avoid this legal obligation. Meanwhile, his family was in a state of panic, with no idea of where their son could be. Aamir said to his audience, in a calm voice, that more than those who are arrested, it is their families who suffer.

With that began his long tryst with jails, courts and then back to prison again. The charges against him were of planting bombs in several terror instances in Delhi in 1996 and 1997; the police said that he had received training in Pakistan. They could not explain how he learned to plant those bombs if he went to Pakistan after he had allegedly committed those terror attacks.

Anyway, thanks to some adroit human rights lawyers, his family’s efforts, media coverage and, most of all, the lack of any evidence, he was pronounced innocent in each and every case. Now he works for an NGO. His education was stopped and attempts to study via Open University courses were thwarted. He hops to continue his studies now. One bright side to the story was that his sweetheart waited for him for 14 years and is now his wife.

There are many interesting human aspects to his story-the help given by civil society groups (but not by religious organisations, who stayed away), the fortitude shown by his mother, who had till then never stepped outside the house and his own inner strength that has ensured he doesn’t turn into a bitter shell of his former self. “I wonder what kind of India my daughter will grow into,” he said to the audience.

The story is tragic enough, but more important is that there are few checks and balances to ensure that such things are not repeated. There is no way to make good anyone who has lost 14 years of his life, but surely there could be some monetary help to put them back on their feet? And what kind of systems can be put in place so that innocent people are not just picked up and charged with false allegations, which they could take years to disprove?

After the function, there was a long queue to get him to sign his book, which he did with aplomb. Someone asked him if there could be a film on his life; modestly he said he had been approached but at that time he was writing his book. “I still live in fear,” he writes at the end of his book. His story is enthralling, even inspiring but it should worry every right thinking citizen of the nation.

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