Prof Rajita Chaudhuri on 'THEY ARE COMING TO GET YOU – NOT ALIENS SILLY'
Arrested for alleged complicity in the Lajpat Nagar blasts when he was just 16, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah was acquitted when he was 30. Haroon Reshi spends time with him and brings out a moving picture of gross human rights violation.
Nipped in the bud After 14 long years of imprisonment, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah (now 30) finds it difficult to resume his life at the same pace and with the same passion as he could have done nearly one and a half decades back.
In early 1996, he had just passed his 11th standard examination from the Gandhi Memorial College in Srinagar when he planned a visit to Delhi where his two elder brothers stayed in connection with their (Kashmir Art) business.
The 16-year-old boy was full of joy as he left his home in the Lal Bazar area of Srinagar in April 1996. It was his first tour outside Kashmir. He could have never imagined that he would not be able to see his family for the coming 14 years.
Maqbool's journey out of Kashmir proved to be a horrible turning point in his life. A few days after he arrived in Delhi, a bomb blast ripped through the Lajpat Nagar market in south Delhi, killing 13 people and injuring 38.
Soon after the incident, the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested 10 accused from different parts of the country. Maqbool was among them. Nine of the arrested people, including a woman, hailed from Kashmir. Mohammad Naushad, the sole exception, was from Delhi. Maqbool, the youngest of the accused, was initially kept in the juvenile jail of Tihar for a couple of years and was later shifted to the main prison.
On April 8, 2010, a Delhi court convicted 6 of the 10 accused and acquitted four others, including Maqbool.
Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mirza Nissar (both from Srinagar) and Mohammad Naushad were sentenced to death and three others, including the woman, were held guilty under the Explosive Substances Act and the Arms Act to face a maximum punishment of seven years' imprisonment.
Maqbool is now trying to resume his normal life but he is still shaken, physically as well as mentally. His happiness at rejoining his family has been overshadowed by the pain of losing his father and sister during the period he was in prison. Before entering his Srinagar home on April 11, Maqbool went to the cemetery to pay his respects to his father Syed Muhammad Shah and sister Hadeesa Bano. He embraced the graves and broke into tears.
Everyone else was in tears too. His father died a year after his arrest while his 24-year-old sister passed away a month after she had visited him at Tihar. Family members say that both the father and his daughter were traumatised by Maqbool's arrest. When Maqbool returned home, the first thing he noticed was a huge walnut tree in the middle of the lawn. The tree was planted by his father a few years before Maqbool's arrest. 'I was stunned to see a huge tree with fruits as it was very small when I had seen it last time,' Maqbool tells TSI. 'Every thing has changed here. It is like a new world for me,' he adds.
These days, youngsters at home, are teaching him how to operate a mobile phone as there were no mobile phones in Kashmir (due to security reasons) when Maqbool had left home 14 years back.
'There was only one landline in this whole area at that time and now every person is having a mobile phone in his pocket,' he exclaims.
'I have learnt how to receive a call. I can also play a game. Now I am learning how to find contact numbers from the phone memory,' he says.
Maqbool is excited in a similar way about the 'money machine'. One of his childhood friends took him to an ATM to show him how it worked.
'The money machine is really a miraculous thing. I will certainly open an account in the bank once I get some money so that I too can use this cash-dispensing machine,' says Maqbool. Maqbool is also taken aback by the spiralling price rise that has affected the Valley. 'Every thing is so costly,' he says. He was surprised when a salon owner charged him Rs 45 for a shave and a hair cut.
'I used to pay only Rs 15 in those days. Now they charge more than triple. It is really worrisome,' he tells TSI.
Maqbool is also amazed by the maddening traffic on the roads. He says, 'It seems every one here owns a car. Every road is full of vehicles. We used to play cricket even on the link roads of the Lal Bazar but now they too remain full of vehicles.'
These days Maqbool is invited for lunch and dinner by his relatives and friends. But he hardly recognises many of them. 'Those who were small kids at that time have grown up and I find it difficult to recognise them,' he says.
Maqbool feels that 'Kashmir has changed, developed and progressed over the past 14 years.' However he is sorrowful over the condition of his own home. 'My brothers were businessmen. They would collect papermache products from craftsmen in Kashmir and sell them to Delhi shopkeepers. But now they have lost all that business. Now my brothers are themselves working as craftsmen. Poverty becomes evident once one visits my home. Every one around has grown rich but my family has lost every thing due to this unfortunate occurrence,' says Maqbool.
'We closed down our business in Delhi as the police had seized all our business documents and bill books. We had some savings at that time but we lost it too, fighting for justice in courts,' adds Maqbool's brother Syed Hassan Shah.
'They have ruined us by imprisoning my innocent son for 14 years. How could they think that a child was involved in such a big crime? I have lost my husband and daughter due to this,' 75-year-old Zoona Begum, Maqbool's mother, tells TSI.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) has urged the government to compensate Maqbool for gross violation of human rights.
CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat recently demanded in the Rajya Sabha that Maqbool should be 'adequately compensated" for the injustice he has faced.
'The Centre should intervene and give him a job to ensure a secure life. He has been a victim of a totally flawed investigation and we cannot shrug it off as collateral damage. We should rehabilitate him in order to send the right message to the people of Jammu and Kashmir,' Brinda said in Parliament.
'The society and the country owed compensation to Sayeed Maqbool Shah for gross violation of human rights,' she added. The demand by a Rajya Sabha member has raised Maqbool's hopes.
He says, 'I hope they (Central Government) will pay attention to this demand. It is the moral responsibility of the government to provide me with all the facilities that I need to lead a respectable life. And, it is the very least I am asking for. I am not asking for justice because I know they can not deliver. the same.'
'They detained me illegally, charged me with serious crimes and imprisoned me for 14 long years. Now they themselves accept that I was not guilty and they have released me. But I want to ask them that who will give me my 14 years back? Can they return me my youth? Can they bring back my educational career? Most of all can they bring my father and sister back,' asks a visibly annoyed Maqbool.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri: The New Age Woman
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
IIPM Lucknow – News article in Economic Times and Times of India
IIPM: Planman Stars – Event management made easy
Planman Consulting
Arrested for alleged complicity in the Lajpat Nagar blasts when he was just 16, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah was acquitted when he was 30. Haroon Reshi spends time with him and brings out a moving picture of gross human rights violation.
Nipped in the bud After 14 long years of imprisonment, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah (now 30) finds it difficult to resume his life at the same pace and with the same passion as he could have done nearly one and a half decades back.
In early 1996, he had just passed his 11th standard examination from the Gandhi Memorial College in Srinagar when he planned a visit to Delhi where his two elder brothers stayed in connection with their (Kashmir Art) business.
The 16-year-old boy was full of joy as he left his home in the Lal Bazar area of Srinagar in April 1996. It was his first tour outside Kashmir. He could have never imagined that he would not be able to see his family for the coming 14 years.
Maqbool's journey out of Kashmir proved to be a horrible turning point in his life. A few days after he arrived in Delhi, a bomb blast ripped through the Lajpat Nagar market in south Delhi, killing 13 people and injuring 38.
Soon after the incident, the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested 10 accused from different parts of the country. Maqbool was among them. Nine of the arrested people, including a woman, hailed from Kashmir. Mohammad Naushad, the sole exception, was from Delhi. Maqbool, the youngest of the accused, was initially kept in the juvenile jail of Tihar for a couple of years and was later shifted to the main prison.
On April 8, 2010, a Delhi court convicted 6 of the 10 accused and acquitted four others, including Maqbool.
Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mirza Nissar (both from Srinagar) and Mohammad Naushad were sentenced to death and three others, including the woman, were held guilty under the Explosive Substances Act and the Arms Act to face a maximum punishment of seven years' imprisonment.
Maqbool is now trying to resume his normal life but he is still shaken, physically as well as mentally. His happiness at rejoining his family has been overshadowed by the pain of losing his father and sister during the period he was in prison. Before entering his Srinagar home on April 11, Maqbool went to the cemetery to pay his respects to his father Syed Muhammad Shah and sister Hadeesa Bano. He embraced the graves and broke into tears.
Everyone else was in tears too. His father died a year after his arrest while his 24-year-old sister passed away a month after she had visited him at Tihar. Family members say that both the father and his daughter were traumatised by Maqbool's arrest. When Maqbool returned home, the first thing he noticed was a huge walnut tree in the middle of the lawn. The tree was planted by his father a few years before Maqbool's arrest. 'I was stunned to see a huge tree with fruits as it was very small when I had seen it last time,' Maqbool tells TSI. 'Every thing has changed here. It is like a new world for me,' he adds.
These days, youngsters at home, are teaching him how to operate a mobile phone as there were no mobile phones in Kashmir (due to security reasons) when Maqbool had left home 14 years back.
'There was only one landline in this whole area at that time and now every person is having a mobile phone in his pocket,' he exclaims.
'I have learnt how to receive a call. I can also play a game. Now I am learning how to find contact numbers from the phone memory,' he says.
Maqbool is excited in a similar way about the 'money machine'. One of his childhood friends took him to an ATM to show him how it worked.
'The money machine is really a miraculous thing. I will certainly open an account in the bank once I get some money so that I too can use this cash-dispensing machine,' says Maqbool. Maqbool is also taken aback by the spiralling price rise that has affected the Valley. 'Every thing is so costly,' he says. He was surprised when a salon owner charged him Rs 45 for a shave and a hair cut.
'I used to pay only Rs 15 in those days. Now they charge more than triple. It is really worrisome,' he tells TSI.
Maqbool is also amazed by the maddening traffic on the roads. He says, 'It seems every one here owns a car. Every road is full of vehicles. We used to play cricket even on the link roads of the Lal Bazar but now they too remain full of vehicles.'
These days Maqbool is invited for lunch and dinner by his relatives and friends. But he hardly recognises many of them. 'Those who were small kids at that time have grown up and I find it difficult to recognise them,' he says.
Maqbool feels that 'Kashmir has changed, developed and progressed over the past 14 years.' However he is sorrowful over the condition of his own home. 'My brothers were businessmen. They would collect papermache products from craftsmen in Kashmir and sell them to Delhi shopkeepers. But now they have lost all that business. Now my brothers are themselves working as craftsmen. Poverty becomes evident once one visits my home. Every one around has grown rich but my family has lost every thing due to this unfortunate occurrence,' says Maqbool.
'We closed down our business in Delhi as the police had seized all our business documents and bill books. We had some savings at that time but we lost it too, fighting for justice in courts,' adds Maqbool's brother Syed Hassan Shah.
'They have ruined us by imprisoning my innocent son for 14 years. How could they think that a child was involved in such a big crime? I have lost my husband and daughter due to this,' 75-year-old Zoona Begum, Maqbool's mother, tells TSI.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) has urged the government to compensate Maqbool for gross violation of human rights.
CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat recently demanded in the Rajya Sabha that Maqbool should be 'adequately compensated" for the injustice he has faced.
'The Centre should intervene and give him a job to ensure a secure life. He has been a victim of a totally flawed investigation and we cannot shrug it off as collateral damage. We should rehabilitate him in order to send the right message to the people of Jammu and Kashmir,' Brinda said in Parliament.
'The society and the country owed compensation to Sayeed Maqbool Shah for gross violation of human rights,' she added. The demand by a Rajya Sabha member has raised Maqbool's hopes.
He says, 'I hope they (Central Government) will pay attention to this demand. It is the moral responsibility of the government to provide me with all the facilities that I need to lead a respectable life. And, it is the very least I am asking for. I am not asking for justice because I know they can not deliver. the same.'
'They detained me illegally, charged me with serious crimes and imprisoned me for 14 long years. Now they themselves accept that I was not guilty and they have released me. But I want to ask them that who will give me my 14 years back? Can they return me my youth? Can they bring back my educational career? Most of all can they bring my father and sister back,' asks a visibly annoyed Maqbool.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri: The New Age Woman
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
IIPM Lucknow – News article in Economic Times and Times of India
IIPM: Planman Stars – Event management made easy
Planman Consulting
