‘They have abandoned my brother’
Taqi Ahmed curses the day he enrolled himself for an MBA degree. Shuttling between Mumbai — where two of his brothers run a small luggage factory — and southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, where he runs a small luggage showroom, hadn’t been as cumbersome earlier.
Taqi Ahmed curses the day he enrolled himself for an MBA degree. Shuttling between Mumbai — where two of his brothers run a small luggage factory — and southeast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, where he runs a small luggage showroom, hadn’t been as cumbersome earlier.
“But when I took admission, I decided to call my younger brother, Naqi, to Delhi from our ancestral home in Darbhanga, Bihar, to help with the family business since I couldn’t travel so frequently anymore,” Taqi recalled.
Less than a year after he had been in Delhi, on the evening of December 9, two inspectors from the Delhi Police Special Cell summoned Naqi to the Shaheen Bagh bus stop to explore his ‘social connection’ with Gayur Jamali, an alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative.
"Yes, my brother knew Gayur Jamali, only because children from both our homes in Darbhanga used to go to the same Safia Madrasa to study. So when Jamali called him one night after Naqi came to Delhi, he didn’t think twice before helping him out," Taqi said.Jamali’s ‘request’ was to help two of his friends, apparently looking for some work in Mumbai, get a rented accommodation. Naqi, relying on his elder brothers’ local goodwill, helped arrange a broker and subsequently a small room at the Habib Building in Byculla (east).
“Today, after detaining both my elder brothers for several days, the Maharashtra ATS is charging Naqi under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the explosives act for this,” Taqi exclaims as he bursts into tears.
“All of this shame and grief after policemen, who made Naqi help them ‘in the name of (his) country’ by taking him to Mumbai to help in tracking him (Yasin Bhatkal), look on. They abuse me over the phone when I call to tell them that my brother is being beaten black and blue by the ATS.”
Officers from the special team of the Delhi Police, who had taken Naqi to Mumbai’s Byculla to help nab two Pakistani bombers Waqas and Tabrez and had earlier claimed that they would ‘stick by him since his role was nothing more than that of an informer’, said they 'can’t do anything about the bail’.
Meanwhile, the ATS has taken Naqi into custody till January 23.