Unfreedom Chronicle

For the family of a person condemned to be hanged, news of his acquittal ought to be an occasion for jubilation. But for the Hussain and Bhat families of Srinagar, news that their sons had been cleared of all charges related to the May 1996 blasts in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market did not bring as much cheer as it should have: the boys had been detained again in connection with the 2008 serial blasts in Jaipur. It beats the two families how their sons could have been involved in the Jaipur blasts, for they happened to be in jail when those blasts took place.

Mirza Nisar Hussain and Mohammed Ali Bhatt have spent 16 years in prison. The Lajpat Nagar case dragged on from the time of their arrest in 1996 to their conviction in April, 2010. Three months later, they filed an appeal with the Delhi High Court. Last week, the high court reversed the trial court’s order. Hussain and Bhat were acquitted, and the sentence awarded to another convict, Mohammed Naushad, was reduced from death to life imprisonment. It upheld the life sentence awarded to co-accused Javed Ahmed Khan.

“My son was 17 when he was arrested. All these years, I was convinced he was innocent. I’ve been proved right,” says Badshah Begum, Mirza Nisar’s mother. “But I wonder why the two trials—Lajpat Nagar and Jaipur—could not have proceeded together? That would have allowed him to start his life afresh sooner. All hopes of his being freed are ruined and we now have another long legal battle ahead of us. How many more years of his life will be wasted?”

She has seen two sons go to jail: Mirza Nisar’s younger brother Iftikar, too,  had been arrested with him after the Lajpat Nagar blasts, but was freed in 2010 after the court dismissed the charges against him. Only afterwards could the family make ends meet and arrange money for fighting Mirza Nisar’s case. The boys’ father had died in 1995, a year before their arrest.

Like the Hussains, the Bhats are praying for an early end to the new headache of the Jaipur case. “Sixteen years is too long a wait. The pain and agony is yet to come to an end: the incident just overturned our lives. I hope the Jaipur-related proceedings finish at the earliest,” says Haji Shah Ali Bhat, Mohammed Ali’s father. That seems unlikely. Not a single hearing has been held yet.

The high court order of November 22 says the Delhi police’s conduct underlines “not only its lapses and inefficiencies, but also throws up a question mark as to the nature and truthfulness of the evidence produced”. It stresses the well-known law point that confessions—which are often obtained under duress—cannot be used as the basis for a conviction and hauls up the investigators for not producing proof connecting some of the accused with the blasts. But the bungling ways of the police continue: after the verdict, policemen took Mirza Nisar and Mohammed Ali to a Jaipur jail but had to bring them back to Tihar jail as they did not have court orders to move them.

Iftikar Gilani, an activist and president of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, says, “The court had directed that the trial of these two must be completed in a stipulated time. This was never followed. Even in the Jaipur case, they were produced before a court only recently. Asking police officers about delays and the reasons for the charges they press on innocents is like throwing yourself against a wall. There’s only one way to fight: produce the evidence to prove the police wrong.”