The families of Minhaz Ahmed and Maseeruddin, who were arrested ‘with explosives’ in Lucknow on Sunday, have questioned the police theory that the two were part of a module that was to unleash terror activities before August 15 in different states.
A delegation of the Rihai Manch, an organisation that works with those who have been wrongly accused of terrorism, met the families of both in Lucknow.
Minhaj holds a diploma in electronics and has a shop where he sells batteries. According to his father Sheraz, a team of the Anti-Terrorist Squad barged into their home at 10 am. “They went to his room and declared that some sacks had been recovered from there. I was having a bath then,” he said.
Sheraz said the family first thought that the police had arrested Minhaj, but later came to know that he was seated in a police car on a lane some distance from their home. “In the evening, between 6 and 7, they took Minhaj to their headquarters and made him sign a form of sorts,” he said. Minhaj has a one-and-a-half year old son and his wife is a teacher.
Maseerudin’s wife Syeda told the Rihai Manch representatives that her husband drove a battery operated rickshaw. He would get his batteries from Minhaz. As Maseerudin could not afford to pay the price of a new battery at one go, Minhaj would come to collect the installments for the same.
She said that the police came to their home around 11 am, asked for him and took him away. “He was in his vest and lungi. They did not even allow him to change,” she said.
While Syeda and one of the couple’s daughters followed Maseerudin to the thana, another police unit returned to search their house. Syeda alleged they took away identity cards, a pressure cooker and even the children’s school books.
Mohammad Shoeb, president of the Rihai Manch, said, “Before every election, Muslim youth are identified as agents of ISI, terrorists of HUJI, dangerous operatives of Indian Mujahideen or members of ISIS, and arrested. Their media trial starts off. All this is done for polarisation of votes during the elections. These arrests are part of the same sequence. The common man is troubled by rising prices, lockdown, unemployment and COVID-19, so the government uses these tactics to divert attention”.
Rajeev Yadav, general secretary of the Rihai Manch, said that in 2017, just a day before voting was to start in the Vidhan Sabha elections, a man called Saifullah was killed in an encounter and labelled a terrorist. “The modus operandi is the same,” he said.
