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Rajasthan Muslim doctor kept in ‘illegal detention’, released

Amanullah Jamali

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan police picked up a young Muslim doctor of the Unani system of medicine employed with the State Government on suspicion of his involvement in the May 13 serial blasts in Jaipur and kept him in “illegal detention” for four days in the third week of June. He was released on June 22 when the investigators failed to get anything substantial from him.

This was the second instance of a professional hunted down in connection with the Jaipur blasts, while several maulvis, imams of mosques and madrasa teachers were detained earlier. Electronics engineer Rashid Hussain working with an IT major here was incarcerated for nine days before he was released on June 9 when the police agencies failed to find anything incriminating against him.

Policemen picked up 33-year-old Amanullah Jamali, at the State Government’s Community Health Centre at Bagri Nagar in Pali district, on June 19 when he was travelling by a Rajasthan Roadways bus to attend his duty. He was first taken to the Beawar city police station and later the Alwar Gate police station in Ajmer, where he was allegedly tortured for four days.

Dr. Jamali – a graduate in Unani medicine and surgery from Aligarh Muslim University – was appointed Medical Officer under the National Rural Health Mission on January 15 this year. He belongs to Bihar and lives in a rented house with his wife and a two-year-old son on Sojat Road, 6 km from Bagri Nagar, and travels daily to attend his duty at the Community Health Centre.

Dr. Jamali told The Hindu that he had lost his mobile phone a few days before the police picked him up. The police apparently discovered the phone and traced from the call details his presence in Jaipur on the day the bombs exploded in the city.

The doctor produced evidence before his interrogators to support his claim that he was in Jaipur on May 12 and 13 to get himself registered with the Board of Indian Medicine, but to no avail. “Policemen brutally thrashed me several times and beat me with canes and abused me,” he said.

Dr. Jamali’s younger brother and brother-in-law, who rushed to the police station on June 21 after they came to know of his whereabouts, were also detained there and not allowed to leave for a day. All of them were released on June 22 .

Inspector-General of Police Laxman Meena – who heads the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the blasts – did not respond to calls made by The Hindu.

The doctor regretted that he was picked up and tortured in police custody only because of his Muslim identity: “My track record as an honest and upright government doctor had no relevance for the policemen.”

Dr. Jamali, who studied up to the twelfth standard in Beawar, was a Unani medicine student at Aligarh Muslim University between 1999 and 2006 and did medical practice in Agra for one year before coming back to Rajasthan to join the service. The State unit of Jamat-e-Islami Hind, which has been following up cases of detention by the SIT, has taken strong exception to the illegal confinement of Dr. Jamali.

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