Deonar dumping ground fires: Arrests made under pressure, accused sent to jail without interrogation

Families of 11 accused told The Indian Express that the Shivaji Nagar police had picked up the men on April 15 and 16 on the pretext of conducting “medical tests”. They said the police had kept them in the dark about the charges slapped on the men.

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Though the police said there was evidence, including eyewitness statements, against those arrested, they did not seek custody of the accused. All 13 are in judicial custody in Arthur Road jail.

Nazneen, wife of accused Saida Shaikh (48), said, “My husband picks up coconut from various localities and sells the dry pulp. He has nothing to do with garbage. Yet the police arrested him along with the others when he was sitting on the street near our home.”

Family members of the thirteen accused arrested by the Shivaji Nagar police station for the Deonar dumping ground fires. Photo of two accused: In blue shirt: Shamim khan in white shirt: Shoaib Shaikh

Twenty-two-year-old Shoaib Shaikh’s mother Shehnaz Begum said, “My son has been working as a ragpicker since he was 12 years old and he mostly picks plastic. He had a valid pass to enter the dumping ground and he was not attached to any particular scrap dealer.”

Vehemently denying the allegation that her son was involved in any sabotage, she said there was no reason for Shoaib to set fire to a place that was the only source of livelihood for the household.

When contacted, DCP Nishandar said the police did not claim that all those arrested were scrap dealers. “Some of them were working at the behest of the scrap dealers to go inside the dumping ground to either collect waste or to hire ragpickers and also to light the fire to separate the waste,” he said.

Family members of several other accused said policemen had asked the men to come along for “blood tests” and then arrested them. “One of the policemen said they were taking them for medical tests for possible harmful effects of working in the dumping ground for long hours. The next thing we knew is that they were booked for the fire and produced before court and were then sent straight to jail,” said Sadrunnisa Wahid Khan, mother of 20-year-old Shamim Khan, one of the accused arrested on Friday.

An hour after the men were taken to the police station, the families came to know that cases had been slapped against them for causing the fire at the Deonar dumping ground on January 28.

The 13 accused have been booked under six charges including Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 285 (negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. The charges, if proven, are serious enough to warrant maximum of a life term.

The fire, which first broke out in January and lasted 10 days before restarting intermittently several times in the later weeks, worsened the air quality in the city, forcing the government to order an inquiry into the matter. An FIR was registered against unknown persons, which now includes names of the 13 accused.

“When we first came to know about the arrests, the police kept telling us that they would let my husband go by Saturday morning. Later, the police said they had orders to make these arrests and that more people would be picked up,” said Sakira Shaikh, whose husband Mohammad Hussain Shaikh drives garbage dumpers.

The police arrested nine men on Friday evening and then four on Saturday, and all nine were sent to judicial custody by a local court where they were presented on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The police did not seek custodial interrogation of any one of them. At the same time, family members said these men had not been previously interrogated by police either.

Nishandar said he would have to check with the investigating officer why custodial interrogation was not sought to probe their role in the fires.

“The police have claimed that some ragpickers gave statements that they were hired by these accused to light fires to segregate waste. The accused include ragpickers. How did the police decide which ragpicker to charge as accused and whom to make witnesses,” asked one family member. He asked how the police would prove a common intent of all the scrap dealers together to light a fire inside the dumping ground on the day of the incident.

Responding to queries on why the police had initially claimed that all those arrested were scrap dealers, Additional Commissioner of Police (East Region) Manoj Lohia said, “We will not categorise the accused as those who are scrap dealers and those who are not. We have arrested those against whom there is evidence, including statements by witnesses who have said they were hired by these men to light fires to the waste. We know that there are many more who are behind the fires and our investigation will lead us to them.”

He added that there were some working on salaries of these accused to light the fires and that some of these were witnesses in the case.

When asked how they had differentiated between which ragpickers to arrest and which ones to take as witnesses, Lohia said the investigation was still in progress.

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