Mohammad Aamir spent the next 14 years in jail, charged under draconian laws like the UAPA. He was just 18 years old when he was abducted from near his house in Old Delhi. The men who kidnapped him were in plain clothes, so he didn’t realize they were police officers. They took him to an abandoned building where, he said, the first thing they did was “strip my freedom and strip my clothes.”
For seven days, Aamir was held in the abandoned building in illegal custody and tortured. “They forced me to sign blank sheets of paper,” he added. After a week, the police produced him in court, claiming he had masterminded over 20 bomb blasts across North India.
“The first 12 cases went by very quickly,” Aamir said, but the final few cases dragged on for nearly a decade. When he finally walked out of jail, his father had died, his mother, paralysed by a stroke, no longer recognised him. He was 32.
Aamir said he faced a lot of difficulty finding a job after his release. “When the prison doors open, the doors to other challenges also open,” he said. “I wake up sometimes in a sweat after having dreams about the prison and the torture. Sometimes, my wife tells me I was screaming in my sleep,” he added. “I feel that no matter how much I try to get rid of this, I will only be partially successful. As I said, this is a part of life. Just like my shadow, as my life continues to grow, this identity will not be removed."
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