Mother's custody plea dismissed after child, 10, refuses to stay with her
On April 30, 2024, the child's father allegedly took the child away without the mother's consent, after which this petition was filed.The bench of Justices Sarang V Kotwal and SM acknowledged how living with the father for the past few months could have affected the child's preference but "at this stage, the boy very specifically told us his wish and, therefore, we are not inclined to take away the child from the father and give the custody to the mother", said the court.Advocate Vikram Deshmukh appeared for the mother and submitted that the child was brainwashed and living with his father was detrimental to his development. Stating how a mother's affection was 'more important for the child', he showed WhatsApp messages exchanged between her and the child.advertisementIt was claimed that either the father wrote all the messages or that the child was brainwashed by him because, in spite of her best efforts, the child did not show any willingness to even talk to her.It was submitted that the child will not be looked after properly because the father is a Green Card holder and, therefore, must reside in the US for at least 160 days. His parents are above 80 years of age; therefore, it is not possible for them to look after the child.The bench interviewed the child in the chambers and said they found him to be intelligent and polite. When asked about whom he wanted to reside with, the bench said he specifically stated his wish to reside with his father.The bench said,"He is always under a constant fear that the mother may take him away from his father and that he may not be able to meet his father again."The bench noted that the mother may approach a competent court with elaborate evidence to prove what would be the best arrangement for the welfare of the child. It asked for the child to be provided with counselling sessions to ascertain whether the boy's mind was tutored by the father.advertisementHowever, because a habeas corpus petition is summary in nature, the court refused to carry out this extensive hearing during the hearing.The bench observed that "this is yet another case where the child is an innocent victim in the bitter battle between his own parents," and that the parties, in the background of their unending grievances with each other, have filed "voluminous pleadings and counter-pleadings".After much deliberation, the bench held the welfare of the child as a paramount consideration and did not let the petition succeed because the father is the natural guardian, and the custody could not be termed as illegal.Must Watch
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Harsh Mander: Living in the shadow of jail, torture – the account of two Muslims acquitted of terror
Imagine you are innocent of any crime. But a day arrives when the police arrest you. They subject you to nightmarish torture. Then they charge you with heinous crimes of terror and treason. Imagine after this you are locked behind prison walls for maybe nine, maybe 14, maybe 19 years. Imagine you are sentenced to death and wait interminable years for the morning you will be marched to the gallows. Imagine then one day that a higher court rules that you are entirely innocent. You find yourself free. You walk through the prison gates into an utterly unfamiliar world. A world that has passed you by. A world hostile or indifferent to the monumental injustice you have endured. You step into a home where your loved ones have died, or wracked by your suffering aged beyond recognition. You see your children whose entire childhood you missed. You understand that you suffered this way only because of the religion into which you were born. Sadly, this has become the story of too many lives in a republic that claims to be a secular democracy ruled by justice and the law. The last decade of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century saw a series of terror attacks and bomb explosions in different corners of the country. After each of these, with few exceptions, Muslim men were charged with these monstrous crimes and jailed for years. Their families lived in penury and disgrace. And then, one by one, these cases began crumbling. Courts declared the accused men innocent and they walked free after unjust incarceration of many years. The mystery of who actually planned and executed the terror killings remained unsolved. The latest in this series of acquittals is of 12 men charged with engineering the deadly blasts that had ripped through crowded compartments at peak hour in seven local trains in Mumbai in July 2006. Nine years later, a special court sentenced five men to death, seven to life imprisonment and acquitted one person. A decade later, in July 2025 the Bombay High Court set aside this verdict, cleared all the accused persons, including those on death row of guilt, made scathing observations on the quality of the investigation and prosecution, and expressed horror at the accounts of torture which, it described if true as 'inhuman, barbaric' enough to 'shock the conscience of anyone'. They walked free after living 19 years in prison. I speak of these men who walk free after long years embroiled in charges of terror crimes as 'terror innocents'. The Mumbai train blast case tragically, as I said, is by no means an outlier. Take just a few examples. In no case that I recount here has any police officer been held to account for torture and fabricating false evidence. No 'terror innocent' has been awarded any reparation, or even monetary compensation for their lives lost in jail and the suffering of their families. Mohammad Amir Khan, a resident of Old Delhi was arrested in 1998 at the age of 18 and falsely implicated in 19 bomb blast cases across Delhi and neighbouring states such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. He was freed 14 years later, the court citing fabricated evidence, coerced confessions, and lack of material proof. One-hundred-and twenty-seven Muslim men were arrested by the Gujarat police at a Surat seminar on Muslim education, accused of belonging to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. After a 20-year ordeal, all surviving 122 accused were acquitted by a Surat court in March 2021. The court ruled the prosecution 'failed to produce cogent, reliable and satisfactory evidence' and highlighted their 'lost years', but no compensation was reported. In May 1994, 11 Muslim men from Jalgaon district were arrested by the police who claimed they plotted bombings to avenge the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The men spent four months in jail before bail, then another 25 years under trial. On 27 February 27, 2019, a Nashik court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act acquitted all 11, with the declaration 'This court finds you innocent'. In February 2008, a terror attack on a camp of the Central Reserve Police Forces camp in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, killed seven jawans. Two Muslims were arrested on charges of storing weapons used in the attack. They were convicted during a trial and imprisoned for about 11 years. On November 3, 2019, a local court acquitted both men for 'want of evidence'. In December 1993, bombs on five Bangalore-bound trains killed two and injured eight. Three Muslim youth from Gulbarga were convicted for the blasts (based on confessions) and jailed. They spent 23 years in prison. In June 2016, the Supreme Court overturned their convictions, because the only evidence was a forced confession without corroboration. On February 1, 2002, six bombs hidden in tiffin boxes exploded on Ahmedabad city buses. In 2003-'04, the police charged two Muslim men with the attacks. They spent 13 years in prison until, in 2017, the Supreme Court acquitted both as innocent. The Supreme Court noted lack of evidence and 'dropped' all charges, declaring the men innocent. On September 13, 2005, seven bombs in Delhi killed 67 people. Police charged two Muslim men, a shawl weaver from Kashmir and a student, with planting bombs. They spent nearly 12 years in Tihar jail until a Delhi court acquitted both, dropping all charges because it found no proof they had any role. In 2002, two co-located Akshardham temples in Gujarat were bombed, killing 33. The police arrested a madrasa teacher and social worker in Ahmedabad, and six others and blamed them based on confessions made during police custody. The men spent 11 years in jail – often in solitary confinement. On May 16, 2014, the Supreme Court acquitted all six, holding that the investigating agency had indulged in a 'serious attempt … to fabricate a case… and frame them'. In September 2006, two bombs exploded in Malegaon, killing 37. Initially, the police blamed Islamic groups, arresting nine Muslims. They spent 10 years in jail fighting charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. In November 2016, a special court in Malegaon acquitted all nine, citing lack of proof. In 2007, the Uttar Pradesh police charged five Muslim youth from Moradabad with ties to the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, alleging they participated in Pakistani training camps. They were jailed for nine years before a court in Uttar Pradesh 2015 and 2016 acquitted all five. On May 18, 2007, bomb explosions during the Friday prayers at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad killed nine people. Police initially arrested four Muslims who spent 7 years in Telangana's Chanchalguda jail. In Feb 2014 the Hyderabad sessions court acquitted all four, finding 'no evidence' to convict. After the Mecca Masjid blasts, police arrested eight more men, alleging they conspired to kill officers in retaliation. Five were killed in 'encounters'. The others were acquitted of all charges in 2017. I could go on. Confronted with evidence of this numbing array of recurrent state cruelty, prejudice and injustice, I sat with two men who had spent long years in jail, charged with terror crimes and then set free. I learned from them a little of how lives are crushed and diminished, how lives are lost to fake terror charges and protracted jail sentences The first of these is Mohd Aamir Khan. Raised in the narrow by-lanes of the medieval Old Delhi, he was charged when he was just 18 with being the master-mind of a series of bomb blasts that traumatised the National Capital Region in 1996. After his release in 2012, he was first taken under the wings of ANHAD led by Shabnam Hashmi, a leading societal formation for advancing communal harmony and minority rights. He then joined me as a valued senior colleague in Aman Biradari and the Karwan e Mohabbat, a people's campaign for combating hate with solidarity, justice and radical love. The second is Abdul Wahid Shaikh, a school teacher in Mumbai who was among the 13 men charged with engineering the bomb explosions on trains in Mumbai in 2007. He was acquitted after nine years in prison. Since then, he has built a remarkable career as a human rights activist, writer, speaker and scholar. His book Begunah Qaidi (Innocent Prisoners) records his experiences in prison. He also completed his PhD on prison writings. Below are extracts from what I learned from them. Mohd Aamir Khan I was 18 when I was kidnapped. I do not call it an arrest. Men in plain clothes caught me in a dark lonely corner when I was walking after dinner to a medicine shop. They threw me into a Gypsy, blind-folded me, tied my hands behind my back, and held me for seven days and nights in a building that was not a police station. An arrest is something that is done to you according to the constitution, the law, by a procedure prescribed in the CrPC [The Code of Criminal Procedure]. I was not arrested, I was kidnapped. I thought they were criminals. I could not imagine they were policemen. No one in my family until then had seen the inside of a court, let alone a police station. I was born in Old Delhi and knew little of the world outside this. I was a teenager and believed that the police existed to protect us. I asked the men why they had kidnapped me. One growled threateningly with a swear word. During the 30-minute journey, I kept wondering why I had been kidnapped. I had seen in Hindi films that people were kidnapped either because of family enmity, or for ransom from very rich people. I was puzzled because we had no such enemies, and I was raised in a lower-middle-class family. The Gypsy reached a building where I was dragged into a room. The men pulled off my blindfold but also all my clothes. I tried to hide my private parts. But one of them laughed – why are you ashamed, this is our everyday work. For seven days and nights I was subjected to third-degree torture. The pain was excruciating, I was screaming, crying. But the men were casual and unaffected by my yelling and pleading, as though this was their routine work. They also tortured me with no fear, no sense that they will be held accountable for this. The torture haunts me even today. They tore off my nails and injected petrol into my anus. They gave me electric shocks on my nipples and private parts. They would make me drink a lot of water: I would then be made to urinate in a tub in which the electric wires were immersed, so I would suffer shocks in my genitals. They would press my feet and my back with wooden logs. These were all assaults that did not leave visible signs of injury on one's body. As the days of torture continued, I began to understand slowly that these must be policemen, because handcuffs and wireless sets appeared. When a senior came in, they would salute in the way policemen salute. They forced me to sign blank confession papers and took me to the magistrate's court. I did not know where they were taking me, but they warned me that I must remain silent: 'Remember that in the end you will come back to us'. When I entered the courtroom, I understood it was a court because I had seen courtrooms in films. I had no lawyer. The judge, the prosecutor, the policemen all spoke in English. I did not understand a word. I kept silent because the police had warned me. I was to learn later that the crime I was charged for was a series of bomb blasts in the NCR region that occurred two years earlier, in 1996. After this I was placed in legal custody. I was taken every 24 hours to be examined by the doctor. But the policeman would tell the doctor, 'Remember the bomb blasts when you had to extract the pellets from the bodies of the victims'. Then he would point to me, in handcuffs, and say, 'He is the person who exploded that bomb'. One doctor replied, 'I don't see any injuries on his body. You are not doing enough. Do your job well. I am here. Don't worry. I will sign the papers that there has been no torture'. This is how they would speak to the doctors, the nurses, the media, even to the courts. The result was the complete choking of any human sympathy and compassion that they might have had. Leave aside compassion, they became unwilling to defend even the rights that the law had given me. This is how they would poison people in all the institutions that were there to protect us. But there were also good examples. I remember being taken in handcuffs to a woman doctor. She asked me if I had any injuries. I was just a child, and very frightened, so I kept silent. She said to the policeman, 'Unlock his handcuffs and leave the room. I want to examine him carefully'. The policeman tried to dissuade her, saying I was a dangerous terrorist. But she was firm. 'I know what my duties are,' she said severely to the policeman. The impact of this torture on my mind and my body have not gone away, although 27 years have passed since that time. In the winter cold or monsoons, my limbs ache. Much worse are the mental health consequences. My mind is not yet fully healed. After my release in 2012, I was treated by the psychiatrist Dr Achal Bhagat, and this helped me. But many times I still wake up while sleeping, screaming or begging for mercy. The nightmares do not leave me. Often, I cannot sleep through the night. It is as though those days of torture and those 14 years in prison will never leave me. They will follow me through my life like a shadow. In jail I learned that I was not the only one who suffered third-degree torture at the hands of the police. Many jail inmates told me similar stories. I often wonder what kind of training is given to these public officials. How do they crush within themselves the most elementary human compassion? There is no humanity in their faces, in their eyes. The faces of the men who tortured me I still remember all these years later. If you are in illegal custody, even if you die, the police do not care. They will just put your body into a bag and dispose it off. I felt safer with legal custody. Prison is another world, hidden behind tall, thick walls and iron bars. This is a deaf and mute world. I say this because the voices, the cries from the world within never reach the outside world. And if the voices reach, no one outside pays any heed. They think of jail as a kind of taboo. If bad things happen inside to the prisoners, that is fine, that is as it should be. There has been much less work on prisoners' rights in India than what I hear about countries in Europe. There is a Russian writer, I don't remember his name, but he said that if you wish to understand a society, look at the arrangements of its jails. Why are our jails full of people who are poor and uneducated, of Dalits and Adivasis? I found in jail that prisoners have a range of talents and capabilities. The trouble is that they had used these in the wrong way. But if treated well, these talents can be used for the good of society. Jails have held Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and Jai Prakash Narayan. There are innocent people in prisons, and every person in prison is a human being who can contribute to making a better world after his release. I was raised in Old Delhi. In my childhood, I had Hindu and Sikh friends. But as I grew to adulthood, they moved out from our neighbourhood, I don't know where. This happened from around 1989, when Advani ji had set out on his Rath Yatra and society began to tear apart. Today in Old Delhi, Hindus and Muslims live in separate neighbourhoods. As I grew into a young man, I was deprived of the beauty of this country in which people of every religion, caste, language, region live side by side. The best thing about jail was that here I found this India, in which there were Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and atheists, people speaking diverse languages, people of diverse castes. We would all eat together, spend time together. I learned about other communities, their ways of life, their problems. In jail I experienced pain but also humanity. In the year 2000, I was thrown by the jailor into solidarity confinement for five months. On the gate of my cell, they draped a blanket so that even the light of the sun would not penetrate. The jailor had strictly warned other prison inmates that if anyone talked to me or shared anything from the jail canteen, they would be severely punished. Ramzan came, and I started my roza fasts. Two fellow prisoners, one Sikh called Baljit and a Hindu called Karan would come every morning at 6 am to my cell, their faces wrapped in mufflers so no one could recognise them. They would throw into my cell each day a packet of dates and a packet of milk for my fast, and then would run away. They never spoke a word to me. They were not even of my faith, they did not know me personally, but they had so much respect for my religious beliefs that they bravely took the risk of punishment so that I could maintain my fast. I learned a lot from them, about humanity and courage. In some ways the suffering of the family of the accused person is even greater than that of the person in jail. In jail he might come to terms somehow with his situation. At least he gets his food on time, he has a routine. But the family that is outside, their suffering is relentless. Society, the police, the media treat them as pariahs. When you are in prison, your family has to earn a living. Many people are unwilling to employ you. On court days, they have to miss the day's wages. Before I was charged with these crimes, my father was given a lot of respect in the community. But now people would shrink away from him. This caused him a lot of suffering. When he went to court, people would taunt him as the father of a terrorist. He was unable to pay attention to his small business, and court expenses and lawyers' fees ate away all our savings. My mother's jewellery was sold, and bit by bit the little property that we owned. Two years after my arrest, my father died. In jail I had no idea of this. It was in the next court hearing that the lawyer informed me that my father had died. The judge condoled with me. I cannot remember anything of what transpired after that in the court. I turned completely numb as I stood there handcuffed. I was helpless and dazed. After the hearing, I walked back through the prison gates into my barrack and lay down. I felt a zinda laash, a living corpse. Years later, after my release, I go sometimes to the graveyard. But I do not even know which spot my father lay buried. I just stand in a corner and pray in his memory. After his death, my mother had to step out of the home to fight my legal case. She was unlettered, had always lived in purdah in her home. But for the next 10 years, she alone fought my legal cases in court. In 2010, she suffered a brain haemorrhage that left her paralysed. After my release in 2012, I found her in this state, a zinda laash. When I stepped out of the gates of the prison in 2012, not just 14 years had passed, the century had changed over. For a prisoner who spends many years in prison, his chronological age increases but he remains stuck at that point of time when he was brought into prison. When he finally steps out of prison, he tries to pick up from where he left off when he was jailed. But that is impossible. I went into jail when my parents were alive and healthy, they were respected in the community, and we had a decent home. None of this was there when I was released. I had to start life again from minus zero. Also, technology. When I was kidnapped in 1998, there were no mobile phones, no metro, no PVR Cinemas, no plastic money (ATM and credit cards), no email, no shopping malls. It took me a long time to learn all of this. I am still learning. When people hear of someone being released from jail, they think that his problems will now be sorted out. Of course, freedom is a great blessing. But so many challenges remain. How will society treat him? Will he get the same respect and position in his community that he enjoyed before he was jailed? Will he get a job, and if so what kind of job? Will the police continue to harass him? Will he still be taunted as a terrorist? Besides, a person spends those long years in prison when he could have educated himself, learned a skill, started a business, taken a job. Deprived of all of this, it is very hard for him to restart life without the robust support of the state. Since the state did none of this for me, I was saved because senior leaders of Delhi civil society did for me what the state should have done. The state has a policy of rehabilitating surrendered militants. These are people who admit that they engaged in terror attacks, and now are turning their backs on this life. I support this policy. But how about people who have not committed any terror crime, yet suffer torture, the suffering of prison sentences, their families destroyed outside? Why is there no policy to rehabilitate these persons? It is important for us to have this conversation. People mostly do not know; they do not care about our predicament. The media creates a sensation when we are arrested and charged with terror crimes. The coverage when we are proved innocent is so much smaller. People think this is a small matter and let it pass from their conscience and consciousness. But spending 14 or 19 years in prison when you are innocent is not a small matter. It should stir the conscience of the nation. Abdul Wahid Shaikh I was not arrested immediately after the Mumbai train bomb blasts on July 11, 2006. Those terror blasts were horrifying. In the crowded compartments of seven different local trains at peak hour, within the space of seven minutes, bombs exploded. More than 200 people were killed and over 700 injured. It is for this crime of the train terror explosions that 13 of us were accused, tortured and jailed. One of us died in prison, I was released after nine years, the other 12 are now acquitted in 2025. After 19 years they walked out of jail. Five were on death row for ten years. Now, the Bombay High Court has ruled that we are all innocent. My formal arrest was not immediately after the train blasts. This happened only three months later, in September. There was an old case of SIMI terror filed against me from 2001, which was proved to be false and I was acquitted. The police used this, and cases like this, to charge all 13 of us. Why were we charged with this terror crime? We were all Muslim, we were all Indians, we all were men who had faith in the Constitution. Before being charged with the Bombay terror blasts, we were all earning our livelihoods in different ways. I was a teacher, another worked in a hospital, one ran a food and vegetable business, one ran a mobile repair shop. (This man, who repaired mobiles, today 19 years later, does not know how to operate an Android mobile phone. He asks me, how do I send a WhatsApp message or an email message). We were mostly were married with children. For three months before our formal arrest, the police would summon us, and illegally detain us sometimes for days at a stretch. They would thrash us each time. The police warned us and our families: don't complain to the media or to the courts. Stay away from everyone. If you break these rules, we will charge you for this train blast terror crime. Because of these threats, we remained silent and our families too were silent. We kept our hearts large and resolved to cooperate with the investigation. We accepted and endured our illegal detentions and thrashing by the police. When the police would learn the truth, they would set us free and our suffering would end. We still had faith. But this did not happen. Even though the police after investigating knew we were innocent, when they could not find the real criminals, they charged us with the terror crimes. The truth is that the police failed to find the real criminals. Not then and not now, all these 19 years later. So, they thought – let us frame these men for the crime. They have old terror crimes in the SIMI case behind them (even though they had been found innocent). They are practicing Muslims. They wear beards and skull caps. We will present them as the men guilty of the horrific bomb blasts on the train. The media will be happy, the families of those killed in the blasts will be satisfied, the public will be appeased. They announced that we are associated with the Lashkar-e- Taiba, the ISI, Al Qaeda. They would keep holding up the Al Qaeda manual, saying that in this the guilty are taught to falsely allege that the police have tortured them. Our torture was in two phases. The first phase was during our illegal detention. I told you that this went on intermittently over three months, mainly beatings. Then began our legal police detention. The police cleverly first registered seven different FIRs for each of the bomb blasts in seven trains. The magistrate was told that there was no larger conspiracy, as if different groups independently organised each of the seven blasts in seven trains. So, for each of the FIRs, they would seek 15 days' police custody. When 15 days were over, they would again seek police custody for the next FIR. This went on for seven FIRs. When all seven were over, the police claimed now that they had discovered a single larger terror conspiracy linking all seven train blasts. The case was now brought under the draconian Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act, and the magistrate now granted another 30 days' police remand. In this way we underwent 80 to 90 days of police remand. I often think that the police must be having a different manual on how to torture. They act with so much cruelty, they show no mercy. There is this medicinal oil for aches and pains called Surya Prakash. They inject this into our anus. The result of this is that a horrible burning sensation spreads to all of your body. You start jumping in pain. The police encourage you to go to the toilet. But when you wash yourself with water, the pain grows even more unbearably. They give electric shocks on your private parts and nipples. They part your legs at 180 degrees, so you start bleeding from your penis. They also resort to water-boarding. For this, they hang you upside down, cover your face with a cloth and then thrust water into your nostrils. You gag and feel that you are drowning. You feel so desperate, you plead with the police – give me any paper to sign, I will sign it, but let me go. The room is kept dark. Sometimes you are blind-folded, sometimes not. Sometimes the temperature is drastically reduced. In the ice-cold room, you are naked, so you keep shivering. The torture room is sound-proof. The Anti-Terro Squad office is located in the middle of a crowded habitation, but however loudly you scream, no one can hear you outside. This was not all. They make us watch the torture of our companions. If you close your eyes or turn your face away, they beat you and force you to watch. This would begin to break our spirit. Even more damaging was what they did to members of our families. For example, there are two brothers in our group of accused men. The police brought their father, stripped him naked and made him parade before the brothers. And then they stripped the brothers, and forced their father to watch them walk naked. If any of them tried to cover their private parts, they would beat them with their batons. Faisal could not bear to see this humiliation of his father. He begged the police, give me any paper to sign and I will sign it. If you want me to confess to the 9/11 attack in America, I am willing even to do this. My only plea is, let my father wear his clothes again. Then they called their bhabhi, and tore off her veil. They would call the mothers, wives and sisters of the accused men, and threaten to rape them. A man can handle a lot of torture when he is the target. But he breaks down when his family is humiliated in front of him. The police would tell us that if you want to be freed from this torture, you will have to sign the papers we give you. Without even reading the papers, you must sign. The law is supposed to protect you because the DK Basu judgment required the police to present us to a doctor for medical examination every 48 hours. This they complied with, on paper. We were taken to various hospitals. But each time, the medical report would always be completely fake. The Bombay High Court said precisely this when they dismissed the case. Someone said to me the other day, torture is necessary in police investigations, because without torture the accused will not accept their crimes. My reply to him was this: okay, if that is the case, pass a provision in law that in criminal investigations torture is a must. Take this bill to Parliament, admit that police use torture for criminal investigation, and justify this in Parliament. But instead, right up to today, the police deny that they have tortured any of us. The torture for 80 or 90 days of police custody that we endured was so agonising, that when we finally were sent to prison, we felt great relief. Ek sukoon sa laga. Those days of torture will stay with us for the rest of our lives. Our limbs still ache in winter. My eyesight is dimming. Even in deep sleep, I get nightmares of the torture. If someone knocks on our door after midnight, my wife and children always panic that the police have come to pick me up. For us, one of the most painful things in prison was the death of our loved ones while we were in prison. My father passed away a year after I was jailed. I had no idea that my father had gone. We are not some famous personalities that this news would be carried in newspapers. It was left to the members of the family to share this news with me. My mother, my wife and my sister came for the mulaqat (those days there was no system of phone calls). They agonised how they should break this news to me, because I was already in so much distress. So, what happens? When they come for the mulaqat, they stay silent, they look left and right, and then they begin to weep. I realise that something is terribly wrong but don't know what this is. I beg them to tell me. The mulaqat is only for 20 minutes. The minutes pass quickly. Finally, when there is just one minute left for the mulaqat to end, they say, 'Don't worry, don't feel any tension. But Abbu is no longer with us'. My grief and loss are greater than I can bear because I could not be with our father when he was dying, I could not organise his medical care, I could not be at hand to comfort my mother and sisters. Not just me. Everyone among the thirteen of us lost their loved ones while we were in jail. Someone lost his father, someone his mother, someone both parents, someone a wife, someone a brother, and so on. Each of us faced this same sorrow. A jailer said to us, 'We too lose our loved ones just as you do. The difference is that we are there by their bedside when they leave this world. But you are far away'. This is our harshest punishment. Those of us who were charged with crimes of treason against the nation and terror killings faced hostility and discrimination from the jail staff and a section of the prisoners, as though we were not even human beings from this planet. But on the other hand, at least we were housed somewhere, had food, a mattress to sleep in, a routine. We would try to come to terms with our situation; we reasoned with ourselves that we suffered because we were charged with such grave crimes. However, our families were not even charged with any crime, except that they were linked to us. I think the punishment that our families endured was much harsher than ours. We were in jail bound by a routine, waking up at a particular hour, eating at a particular hour, and so on, behind the high walls of the prison. But they had to face alone the hostile world outside: relatives, the media, police. And they needed to survive through all of this. Their one earning member is in prison. The children's school fees have to be paid. Sisters have to be married off. Parents need medicines. So many demands. Many children drop out of school. Parents cannot afford the medicine they needed to stay alive. Relatives break their bonds, friends turn away. Our relatives distance themselves from us, not because they think we are guilty of terror crimes, but because they fear that the wrath of the ATS that had made us terror accused, that wrath should not be directed toward them. My wife was in purdah, but with me in prison, she had to step out of her home and earn an income. Her two children drank milk from her breasts, but since she had to work outside, they were switched to bottles. These many small things our families endured, but none of this will be considered worthy of being written down in any book. Think of the wife who waits 19 years for the return of her husband. She does not divorce him and remarry. She holds on desperately to the hope that he will one day be released, because she knows he is innocent. Think of the daughter who was born after her father went to prison. She never saw her father's face, and he never saw her face. In normal times, she could have studied and become a doctor or engineer. But with her father in prison, none of this was possible. When you get your first judicial remand, you think you will be in jail for 14 days, because that is the length of the remand. And these 14 days stretch to 14 years. It is a kind of slow poison that you are fed. Think of the five men in our case who were awarded the death penalty by the trial court. The appeal against this order took 10 years to be resolved. Imagine, for 10 years they were forced to live with the dagger of death hanging over their heads. Each day could bring them closer to the gallows. I said they were forced to live this way for 10 years. I should have said, they were forced to die a little like this every day for 10 years. Every day you grapple with the fear that news will come that the appeal is rejected and you are marched to the gallows. You are housed next to the hanging room. Every day, the gallows are oiled, and you can hear it. And you think, these gallows are being readied for me. This is the slow poison that I speak of. I salute the two judges of the Bombay High Court. They had the courage, the daring, the vision, and the conscience, to look at 10 untruths and decide that this is the one truth. If they did not have this courage, these men would be facing the gallows. Even though they were innocent and they continue to be innocent. After 19 years you are released from jail. The world has entirely changed. I was travelling on the flight with Sajid Ansari, one of the men who was just released. He came to Delhi to meet his family here. He said to me, 'I am travelling in a plane after 19 years'. I asked him, 'How did you travel by plane 19 years ago?' It was the ATS, he said, that had flown him to Bangalore for a narco-test. He was confused at every turn in the airport. Everything had changed. He could not step on to an escalator. We get used to doing many things at the same time: sipping our coffee, talking on the phone, lining up for our check-in, and so on. In jail, you do only one thing at a time. Sajid said, I am feeling dizzy. What should the state do? After the acquittal and release order, within 24 hours the Maharashtra government had reached the Supreme Court with an appeal. This kind of hostility to a section of citizens is shameful. To begin with, the impunity that the police enjoy must end. When we were tortured, the police were fully confident that no harm could come to them. They were protected by the home ministry, by the government. Even if someone died in torture, it would take them no time to convert the death from a torture killing to an 'encounter' (claiming that the police had to kill him in self-defence because he tried to kill policepersons). Let us talk next of compensation for innocents who spent long years in jail. People advise us to approach the courts. I don't understand this. When we were accused, we had to find lawyers to defend us. When we are innocent, we still have to find lawyers to approach courts to compensate us. Does society owe us no responsibility? Does no responsibility vest with the government? Parliament should bring a law for compulsory compensation. Sajid said to me: what compensation in the whole world can compensate for the 19 years that we spent in prison? Calculate this – my life, my wife, my children, they were all snatched away from me. My youth, can you bring back my youth? What is the cost of all of this? I said to Sajid – for an innocent man to spend 19 years in jail, the compensation should be at least 19 crore rupees. Sajid said, no, even this is not enough. 'The compensation that I seek is that in future, no innocent person should be framed like I was. No innocent person should have to spend time in prison like I did. This is the only compensation that I seek'. These were his words.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Clerks, helpers, SPOs & gunmen in MCG's new surveillance team to check illegal waste dumping
Gurgaon: MCG commissioner Pradeep Dahiya on Friday deployed four member teams of gunmen, clerks, helpers and special police officers (SPOs) for surveillance of the illegal dumping of construction and demolition (C&D) waste and solid waste across the city. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The teams will monitor waste dumping round-the-clock in the city and will work as part of the sanitation security force (SSF). These teams will work in three shifts – the first from 8am to 4pm, second from 4pm to 12am, and third from 12am to 8am. "They will ensure that nobody dumps C&D waste and garbage illegally in the city," an order issued by MCG commissioner read, adding that teams should send geo-tagged photos, videos of vehicles unloading the waste and photos of those vehicles on WhatsApp groups formed for the same. "They are to ensure coordination with police and also make sure that the vehicles seized are impounded with police and further legal action is taken," read the order. Dahiya told TOI, "We have deployed teams of gunmen, who are ex-servicemen, along with helpers and SPOs. Our teams often face threats while monitoring dumping activities at night, so this measure is both preventive and for their safety. The aim is to ensure uninterrupted monitoring and to put a stop to illegal dumping. With this kind of surveillance, we expect to see noticeable improvements within a week ." The campaign is currently focused on areas such as Gurgaon–Faridabad Road, Sector 29, Southern Peripheral Road (SPR), and the Auto Market. Civic teams have been instructed to ensure that all construction debris is cleared promptly and disposed of as per guidelines. Officials said strict action will be taken against violators, including the seizure of vehicles, imposition of fines, and filing of FIRs. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Dahiya added that surveillance will be further strengthened in the coming week. "Some of the waste collection agencies hired by bulk waste generators (BWGs) are dumping waste at garbage-vulnerable points. We plan to inspect each of these sites, document violations with video evidence, and take legal action wherever needed," he said. Officials noted that the corporation is working to eliminate garbage-vulnerable points from city roads and public areas. "In addition to clearing these sites, we'll take action against those responsible for dumping. Any negligence or obstruction in waste management efforts will not be tolerated," they said.
Hindustan Times
3 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Willingdon co-op residents in race against time to save their homes
MUMBAI: In a little over 10 days, the fate of 27 families residing between 17th and 34th floors of the Willingdon View Cooperative Housing Society (CHS), in Tardeo, will be sealed. The residents are racing against time to get their fire safety certificate from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), to avoid eviction. Mumbai, India. Aug 08, 2025: View of Willingdon Heights at Tradeo in South Mumbai. The Bombay High Court ordered 27 families living on the upper 18 floors to vacate their flats within three weeks, as these units do not have an Occupancy Certificate (OC). Mumbai, India. Aug 08, 2025. (Photo by Raju Shinde/HT Photo) (Raju Shinde) On August 1, the Supreme Court (SC) had declined to interfere with the Bombay High Court's (HC) directive to evict residents from these floors which neither have Occupancy Certificate (OC) nor a fire department No Objection Certificate (NOC), on August 27. Many have lived here for over a decade. The building, constructed in 2010, has part-OC and no NOC for fire safety. The deadline for eviction incidentally coincides with upcoming festivals – Paryushan, a Jain festival of self-purification, and Ganesh Chaturthi. After the SC's August 1 directive the society submitted an undertaking to BMC on August 8, in which the residents formally agreed to vacate their flats on August 27. Failure to move would result in forcible eviction with police assistance, following which the premises would be sealed, civic officials had confirmed at the time. The affected residents are soldering on to protect their homes and working hard to fulfil all 17 requirements set by the Mumbai Fire Brigade, which include installing fire sprinklers on every floor, acquiring diesel generator (DG) sets and constructing a nine-metre-wide ramp for emergency vehicle access, before the next HC hearing on August 22, which concerns the OC for lower floors (1 to 16). Twenty five families reside on those lower floors – they are protected for now as the building has part-OC, while those on the upper floors are facing the brunt of the legal and logistical battle. The fire department's inspection of the premises on Thursday has infused a shot of optimism among residents. The fire NOC is crucial, since without that, the society cannot secure a full OC, especially for floors 17 through 34, which are deemed unauthorised under current regulations. 'We are leaving no stone unturned,' said Narendra Bhandari, chairman of the society, who is overseeing the ongoing construction of the ramp at one of the building's entrances. 'We've fulfilled nearly all the fire compliance norms, save one minor condition. We are ensuring every little detail is being taken care of for the safety of the residents,' he said. Mahesh Shivahare, the society's secretary and a 24th-floor resident, echoed the urgency of the situation. 'We have complied with all fire safety requirements. All the work is nearly done, but we are fighting against time. We have exhausted all our resources – the emotional and financial strain have been immense,' he said. Karan Singh, who lives on the 13th floor, said, 'We are united and staying strong. Our focus is on getting the fire NOC before August 27.' The present crisis has cast a shadow over upcoming festivals, with residents overwhelmed by the uncertainty of their future. Articulating the collective fear, Shivahare said, 'We have senior citizens with health issues, school-going children, and two weddings planned by two families.' Dilip Sethia, a 19th floor resident, pointed out how the deadline comes at a time of festivities. 'Most of us are Jains who observe Paryushan from August 20 to 27. Our festivals are meant to be peaceful. We fast in this period, but now we are dealing with uncertainty and fear.' Satish Mehta, who owns two flats on the 34th floor and has lived in the society for over 12 years, highlighted the immense logistical challenges of relocating. 'There's a shortage of rental flats in Tardeo due to ongoing redevelopment. We need at least 40 flats within 10 days. Many of our residents are elderly and ailing. Uprooting them is not just difficult, it's challenging,' he said. The origins of the problem date back to 2018, when BMC first served a notice to the society to vacate the premises, deemed illegal for failure of compliances, under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act. A follow-up notice in February 2025 reaffirmed the order to vacate. The demise of the builder and his absconding son through this time had left residents in a legal quagmire. Reflecting on the lessons learned, Mehta pointed out that unlike in the past, today there is much more transparency in property sales, as buyers can easily access information through BMC's portal and the MahaRERA website, where both complaints and builder records are available. 'It's no longer easy for builders to cheat, there are clear avenues for accountability. But when we purchased this property in 2010, everything was manual, and awareness was low. I would advise buyers to verify every plan the builder shows with the BMC's building proposal department. Builders often revise and amend plans, presenting one version to buyers while the BMC may have an entirely different one on record, especially regarding FSI concessions,' he added. Meanwhile, the court's decision on August 22 will determine whether their last-ditch efforts will bear fruit or force them into a hurried and painful exodus on August 27. 80% of Mumbai's bldgs operate with part-OC A senior housing expert, who did not wish to be named but has worked extensively with the government, said that around 80% of Mumbai's buildings operate with only part-Occupancy Certificates (OC), a loophole often exploited by builders. 'Developers complete construction, following which they apply for part-OC so that they can get permission from BMC to carry out work on the interiors. Once that is in, electricity and water is provided to the buildings for six months. This part-OC is meant only for temporary work, not for occupation. However, once it is granted, people move in. After six months there are no checks from the administration,' he said. On the issue of flouting FSI (Floor Space Index) norms, he pointed out that changing regulations over time have allowed builders to exploit the system. 'Earlier FSI rules were different. Builders constructed illegally, and now they push for regularisation under the new FSI regime. It's a system that encourages violations, with money exchanging hands between builders, politicians and officials.' He criticised the new Development Control Regulations (DCR), saying they effectively reward violations. 'DCR 33(11), 33(12B), and 33(20B) allow illegal constructions to be regularised by granting additional FSI. These rules are destroying the city.' What the law says 'A No Objection Certificate (NOC) for fire preparedness, by itself, is not sufficient. It must comply with the law. An NOC from the fire department that violates fire safety norms is just as bad or worse than having no NOC at all. The core issue isn't just the lack of a fire NOC, but whether the construction violated provisions of the National Building Code, which the chief fire officer (CFO) is duty-bound to enforce,' said Advocate Y P Singh. Singh referred to The Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006, which mandates that fire NOCs be issued in alignment with the National Building Code. 'The acid test is whether those rules were violated and if so, whether such violations are being overlooked in other new buildings across Mumbai,' he said, warning that many high-rises are currently flouting fire norms. 'We're seeing 50-storey towers with only 1.5 metres of open space when the code mandates 20 metres. This shows blatant non-compliance. There needs to be a citywide audit of all fire NOCs issued. Wherever violations are found, those buildings must be evacuated,' said Singh. Willingdon Vs Campa Cola case The Campa Cola housing society, in Worli, and Willingdon View Cooperative Housing Society – both mired in cases of illegal construction – differ significantly in legal reasoning and judicial approach. HT has seen the copy of the HC order of July 15 2025, pronounced in the Willingdon case, which underscored the differences between this and the Campa Cola case. It stated that in the case of Campa Cola, the Supreme Court initially granted temporary relief to residents on humanitarian grounds, invoking Article 142 of the Constitution, which empowers the court to deliver complete justice. The case involved unauthorised floors in the housing complex that exceeded the permitted Floor Space Index (FSI). In contrast, the Willingdon View case involves the absence of fire safety NOC and a full occupation certificate, which renders the building illegal. The court firmly rejected any comparison with Campa Cola, emphasising that statutory provisions and planning regulations must be upheld. The court also criticised a recurring pattern in Mumbai's real estate sector, where developers and societies exceed permissible limits and later seek protection on humanitarian grounds.
