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Report from: Hardnews
Jamia Nagar: This ain’t no terror hub
Can cops pick up people from a Muslim ghetto in the heart of the capital and get away with no questions asked?
Sadiq Naqvi Delhi
“This atmosphere of suspicion and fear has created panic among the locals as well as the students of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) who reside in Jamia Nagar,” says Farah Farooqui, a teacher at JMI. Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association (JTSA) organised a protest at the Delhi Police Headquarters to oppose the criminalisation of this locality by the police and security agencies.
Fear has become a part of life in Jamia Nagar, a Muslim ghetto in South Delhi, in the heart of the capital. Post the ill-fated morning of September 19, 2008, when two young men, Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid, were gunned down in cold blood in what is perceived as a fake encounter, things have only worsened. Arbitrary visits by the local police and security agencies from all over the country are a regular happening. Especially young men from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have become easy targets. Rounded up for bomb blasts and other terrorist activities, many of the so-called masterminds are said to have some relationship with this part of the city. “This mixed population, largely lower middle class, has become an easy target for the security agencies,” says Farooqui.
On the night of February 16, three days after the bomb attack on the Israeli diplomat, some Delhi Police personnel, said to be belonging to the ‘Bangladeshi cell’, arrived at Batla House in Jamia Nagar and rounded up some persons, claiming they were “illegal Bangladeshis”. The locals initially thought the cops had come looking for some Iranian nationals. As the information spread that Special Cell and Maharashtra ATS had come to pick up ‘terrorists’, a few hundred strong mob gathered and resisted this move. Moreover, the local police station too had reportedly not been informed of this raid.
“The cops hauled people into the van as if they were animals. This is how MCD picks up stray cattle and dogs from the streets,” says Farooqui. In the recent past, there have been more cases of such visits by the Maharashtra ATS
Most of these so-called Bangladeshis reportedly belong to north Bihar, the districts of Darbhanga and Kishenganj, which have become the new face of terror for the security agencies after Azamgarh, which was christened as Aatankgarh by the media, which readily laps up the stories handed out by security agencies. The cops reacted aggressively to the resistance put up by the people when they did not even allow them to leave with the detained ‘illegal immigrants’, who are said to have produced proof of their Indian nationality. Shots were fired in the air. Six personnel have since been suspended and a probe has been ordered.
‘The cops hauled people into the van as if they were animals. This is how MCD picks up stray cattle and dogs from the streets’
“How many more Aatankgarhs? How many more places will become the so-called hot spots of terror in the eyes of the security agencies?” asked Mahtab Alam, a freelance journalist and human rights activist. “Various official and unofficial cells of Delhi Police have turned Jamia Nagar into a favourite hunting ground. Recent events make it amply clear that the police is indulging in communal profiling and thinks that it can get away by picking up people from this area with no questions asked,” said Manisha Sethi of the JTSA.
