6 picked up and freed in Gujarat, go through it again in Mumbai

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Back home in Halav Poll in Mumbai’s Kurla neighbourhood, Sabir finds it hard to keep a straight face recounting the events of the last month. However, they all realise what a close shave it was.

“We are lucky we were released. Some others may not be so lucky. The media had already started projecting us as terror suspects even without verifying facts. I am surprised police took that long to realise we are normal youngsters,” says Rehan.

Raza says the plan to visit the Vadodara shrine was impromptu. His friends and he were fond of visiting such shrines, and a long Republic Day weekend was coming up.

“I got to know that a group of friends was going to the shrine of Shafi Saiyad Dada, and tagged along,” says Raza, a call centre employee. While Sabir has a business in chairs, Jameel sells clothes, Rehan works with his uncle in a plastics shop, Kakade is a bank clerk and Siddiqui works for a local media organisation.
The friends left for Vadodara on the night of January 23 by train, and reached the following morning.

Raza says they headed straight for the shrine. Noticing that the surroundings of the shrine were dirty, he adds, they decided to clean it up.
According to him, a woman from whom they asked water for cleaning suddenly got suspicious. “She asked us why we had come all the way to Vadodara when there were several shrines in Mumbai,” says Raza.

The day before, the NIA had rounded up alleged Islamic State sympathisers from across the country, and it was top news that day. A crowd soon gathered around the shrine, bringing in BJP corporator Chandrakant Thakkar.

Jameel remembers Thakkar asking them what they had been doing at the shrine for “the last five days”. “We said we had arrived just that morning and showed him our train tickets. He, however, said we should have a chat with the police, and called them,” Jameel says.

Thakkar continues to believe that the group was “up to something sinister”, claiming they were unable to explain what they were doing at the dargah, located in the sensitive Walled City area of Vadodara, after putting up curtains around it.

Says the corporator, “Every morning, I take rounds of my ward. About 15 days before the six boys arrived, one man had come to the dargah, downed the curtains and remained inside for a long time. A few days later, he had returned with two other men. Finally, that morning, the man had returned with five 22-25-year-old boys and put the purdah again. The curtains of the dargah are never closed and that is why a woman in the neighbourhood called me. When I asked them to step out of the dargah, they were unable to explain what they were doing inside with the curtains down.”

Asked about the charge, Raza says they had just hung the chadar they had carried from home as a curtain to the shrine, as it had none. “I don’t know why the politician had a problem with it.”

Before police, called by Thakkar, arrived, came the media, and by the time the youths had reached the police station, TV channels were beaming news of “possible terror suspects” being picked up in Vadodara.

The friends remember being asked repeatedly why they were in the city — “the same questions, again and again and again” — so much so, they say, that they can tell still the number of stars on their interrogators’ uniforms.

“They went through our phones, our recent Internet history, our WhatsApp conversations, even our photo gallery, but nothing stood out,” says Raza.
Meanwhile, a neighbour of Raza’s in Mumbai who saw the six being bundled into a police jeep in Vadodara first tipped off his family. They approached a local social activist, Aijaz Shah, who, in turn, contacted the Mumbai police. “I asked them to confirm the antecedents of the six. All are simple, hardworking people,” Shah says.

Families sent in IDs, other documents to prove the youths’ innocence, even as by night, the Maharashtra ATS sent own men to check the homes of the youths in Mumbai. A Gujarat ATS team followed, even as over in Vadodara, the questioning of the youths continued till January 25 morning.

Each of the teams did their own checking, of the youths’ homes as well as of their computers. Finally the Gujarat ATS told their counterparts in Vadodara that nothing incriminating had been found. On January 26 evening, the six were finally released, with the advice to not leave Gujarat till Republic Day ended.
Raza says the Gujarat Police at least treated them well. “They were extremely polite. The Baroda police inspector uncle even gave us Rs 1,000 to ensure we returned home comfortably.”

They finally left for Mumbai on the night of January 26. Recounting how their papers, returned by the Gujarat ATS, got left behind in their taxi from Dadar Railway Station the next day, Sabir says, “We were exhausted. We had hardly slept and were feeling numb.” With all of them dazed at their “luck”, it was only Raza who kept talking, he adds.

By the time they had reached home, a call had come from the Chunabatti police station summoning them back for questioning, on the basis of their recovered papers. They were interrogated for four more hours, again about their presence in Vadodara.

While Vadodara Commissioner of Police E Radhakrishana refused to comment on the detention, then senior inspector Praveen More of V B Nagar police station in Mumbai, under whose jurisdiction the youths’ homes fall, says, “We found nothing suspicious. No connection could be established to any gangs or groups.” More was transferred on Monday.

Meanwhile, the six remain unsure about what exactly police suspected them of, though they can guess. “We only know ISIS through news channels,” says Rehan. “Even police, barring one officer, did not ask us about ISIS. Only once were we asked if we had heard about ISIS and SIMI.”