The intensity in which the climate of hate has spread through out the world, is indeed a tragedy. Time and again, innocent Muslims have been subjected to state-sponsored brutality and inhuman treatment. The voices against this brutality is sadly none. And this silence on part of Muslims, has only given a chance for more sadness, and more subjugation.
Tears rolling down his eyes
Muhammad Haneef, until July 13th 2005, was a innocent man with a job, a wife and three kids to look after, there was nothing cinematic about him or his life, but then, he was picked by the Uttar Pradesh police and systematically tortured for a week.
He was told that he was an “ISI agent” who was involved in taking out some “sensitive” documents from the Army Camp, Tezpur, Assam to hand them over to Pakistani intelligence officers based in New Delhi.
… after the torture, the senior police officers of UP police who were interrogating him asked their junior officers to leave Haneef as he was not the person they were looking for. But the junior officers asked Haneef to “name some rich Muslims” whom the police could arrest on the pretext of being a terrorist and extract money from them, something which poor Haneef refused to do because he didn’t know any rich Muslim and also because of the fact that it would have been “wrong.”
Haneef had to pay a ugly price for his refusal to co-operate in this nefarious plan.
For around six months the innocent Haneef flurried between jails in Assam and Tihar jail in New Delhi. It was only after six months, in November 2005, after paying huge money, this poor tailor managed to get bail.
The state of Haneef and his family today
Muhammad Haneef with his family
Haneef has lost his job, he has changed his house several time, but every time the alleged charge of being an ISI agent comes forward, he becomes homeless again.
“What is my fault except that I am a poor Muslim who doesn’t even know what the charges on him are? I have lost even my job. Now from where will I be able to feed my family?”
Also read:
‘Framed, Damned and Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell’, a report on how Muslims are implicated on false charges of terrorism in India.
