Over a month, four ‘terror’ arrests in Indore for ‘shouting slogans’

It's just not Urdu writings or a magazine copy that can get you booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). In many cases — including five over the course of one month, April 2008, four of them in Indore alone — the script was the same: a mukhbir or informer tipped off police about men "shouting anti-government slogans" outside mosques or in front of their homes, and the men were arrested and then left to battle it out in court.

* September 27, 2001, Solapur

The case was filed on the day the Centre issued its first notification banning SIMI. Assistant Police Inspector Dattatray Bapurao Patil of Sadar Bazar police station noted in the FIR (3824/2001) that he and his team were patrolling when "we found one person Abdul Rehman Ahmad Ali Kalyani had gathered some people in front of Konchikozi galli... After enquiring about the same, we found that the said person was trying to bring together people who support the organisation (SIMI)". Kalyani, 19, was arrested under the UAPA. While police admitted that nothing incriminating had been found when they searched Kayani's house, the Maharashtra government, giving sanction for his prosecution, accused him of carrying out SIMI activities aimed at "secession of Maharashtra territory".

In its affidavits before the UAPA Tribunal, the Maharashtra government has repeatedly said: "The ultimate aim and ideology of SIMI is pan-Islam movement i.e Islam Education of entire India by adopting Nifaq (hatred), Saria (accruing money by adopting illegal means) and Jihad (holy war)." The claim itself is comical. While nifaq means disunity, the word saria has no such known meaning in either Urdu or Arabic.

Incidentally, Kalyani had a case registered against him earlier too, in 2000, for pasting a poster protesting against the Babri Masjid demolition.

* September 28, 2001, Yavatmal

... contd.

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