After Mamata posts ‘torture' of Malda woman by cops, Delhi Police questions her, says no proof of her claims
The family of Sajnur Bibi, the woman said to be in the video, however, stuck with their allegations against the Delhi Police.
Bibi had claimed that policemen in plainclothes had come to her house in East Delhi's Geeta Colony at 11 am on July 26 (Saturday) and took her into custody despite taking her documents the day before. While in custody, she claimed, she and her one-and-a-half year-old son were beaten and she was forced to pay Rs 25,000. According to Bibi, the policemen took her to a park behind K R Mangalam Hospital where they subjected her to physical assault and extortion.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Bibi's husband Mukhtar Khan said: 'I had gone out for work and my wife was cooking lunch (on Saturday).
When I returned, she was nowhere to be seen. When I called her, she told me she had gone out to buy vegetables… After some time, I got a call from an unknown number… My wife had called me from someone else's phone and told me to come and get her because she had lost her way. When I went to pick her up from the park, I saw my child had bruises on his ear and forehead… She told me later what had happened,' said Khan.
According to Khan, the police had come to their house a day before as well to verify whether the family were illegal immigrants. 'They took one look at our Aadhaar cards and told us that we're Bangladeshi… After that we kept getting calls from unknown numbers telling us that if we try to run away, we will be in trouble,' alleged Khan. Khan claimed that the calls frightened them, prompting him to make arrangements to leave for home in Malda.
However, before they could leave for the railway station on Sunday, the police rounded them up and brought them to Madhu Vihar police station for questioning.
The Delhi Police, however, said that the family was called for questioning on Sunday after the West Bengal chief minister posted a video on her X handle.
'We brought them in after we saw the social media post by the West Bengal chief minister. We had to verify their version of events since no one in the police station was aware of any verification drive being conducted in the area,' a Delhi Police officer said.
'We examined the CCTV footage along the entire route that the woman (Sajnur Bibi) said she was taken by the policemen. In the footage, she can be seen walking alone with her children… In fact, we even lined up all the police personnel in front of her and asked her to identify to us who had detained her and hit her child, but we got no answers,' DCP (East) Abhishek Dhania told The Indian Express.
'When we questioned both the husband and wife, they told us that she had actually lost her way back home. They later concocted the story after the husband's uncle – who is a political worker in TMC – told them to,' added the DCP.
According to the police, the couple's Call Detail Record (CDR), too, didn't reveal any threats or extortion calls being made by anyone.
Meanwhile, the chairman of West Bengal Migrant Labourer Welfare Board, Samirul Islam, claimed that the Delhi Police detained the family again to pressure them. 'This is nothing less than terror on migrants from West Bengal. Now, a child is also not spared. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee highlighted the plight of the mother and child detained by Delhi Police. Hours later, the family was again picked up by Delhi Police. They must be forcing them to deny the incident. This cannot be tolerated,' said Islam, a Rajya Sabha member of the TMC.
According to relatives, Sajnur Bibi is a mother of three children and works as a caretaker in a public toilet along with her husband in the Pandavnagar area of Delhi.
According to the woman's father -in-law, the family has been staying in Delhi for the past six years and hails from Malda.
Meanwhile, relatives of the family in Chanchal, in West Bengal's Malda district, lodged a complaint with the local police on Sunday night.
Ravik Bhattacharya is the Chief of Bureau of The Indian Express, Kolkata. Over 20 years of experience in the media industry and covered politics, crime, major incidents and issues, apart from investigative stories in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Andaman Nicobar islands. Ravik won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in 2007 for political reporting.
Ravik holds a bachelor degree with English Hons from Scottish Church College under Calcutta University and a PG diploma in mass communication from Jadavpur University. Ravik started his career with The Asian Age and then moved to The Statesman, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. ... Read More
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