The Hindu : National : `Police have no right to kill people'

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Friday, Jul 16, 2004

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National

`Police have no right to kill people'

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, JULY 15. Justice (retd.) Hosbet Suresh today said there was no law in the country that states that police can just kill people. He was releasing a report of the People's Tribunal titled "The Terror of POTA and other Security Legislation" based on hearings held in New Delhi on March 13 and 14.

Referring to the incident last month where four persons were shot dead in Ahmedabad, including a young girl from Mumbra, Ishrat Jahan, Mr. Suresh said, "The police cannot presume to be judges and say that people are terrorists and kill them. They have to first investigate the case properly."

Human rights activist, Teesta Setalvad, one of the conveners of the Tribunal, said the media was abdicating its responsibility by accepting reports dished out by the police and intelligence services without asking enough questions. The father of one of the POTA detenus in Mumbai narrated how his younger son, Sharif, had been arrested in the special POTA court this month as he was caught taking pictures with his mobile phone. Mr. Mulla's older son, Aatif has been detained for alleged involvement in the Mumbai blasts. "For such a minor offence, my son, Sharif, was jailed for nine days, and not granted bail till today. For three days he was intensively interrogated by the Crime Branch, which gave him a clean chit. Then the police arrested him in a case of alleged rioting of last October. This `riot' case only involved passing a bottle of water to Aatif while he was being taken back into custody," said Mr. Mulla.

Advocate Mihir Desai said that POTA has failed miserably to deal with terrorism and it must be scrapped with retrospective effect.

The People's Tribunal documented cases of illegal custody, solitary confinement, forced confessions, sexual and religious humiliations and disappearances. Over 200 people deposed at the hearing in New Delhi. Advocate Majeed Memon said that in Gujarat of the 247 persons arrested under POTA, 246 were Muslims and one was a Sikh. Does POTA have a provision only to arrest members of the minority community, he asked. He also spoke about the case of Khwaja Yunus who was arrested under POTA and who "disappeared" last January. Everybody knows it was a case of custodial death but no one is willing to say this openly, Mr. Memon said.The panelists who recorded the testimonies were K.G. Kannabiran, Syeda Hamid, Justice Suresh, Ram Jethmalani, once a votary of POTA, Mohini Giri, Arundhati Roy, Justice D.K. Basu and Praful Bidwai.

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