Jailing innocent: Bengal blames UP police for 145;wrong146; info

The CID has, meanwhile, scrambled to control the damage done to its image by Aftab8217;s arrest from Cossipore on December 27. 8220;The STF is responsible for this,8221; said Rajiv Kumar, the Special Inspector General of the CID who had 8216;masterminded8217; the goof-up. Kumar added, 8220;Technically, it was the STF that arrested him. We had sent two photographs of 26-year-old Aftab after they tipped us off, and they confirmed that he was Mukhtar Ansari alias Raju 8212; a terrorist they were looking for. This was a mistake without any intention.8221;

Aftab8217;s family members, who had all along been saying that he was innocent, told The Indian Express on Friday that things took an extreme turn only because they are Muslims. Aftab, a head mazdoor with private power utility, CESC Limited, was suspended from work after his arrest.

8220;It8217;s very easy to stamp a Muslim as terrorist,8221; said Ershad Ali, Aftab8217;s maternal uncle, who had lodged a missing person8217;s diary and later, a bail petition before the Alipore court. 8220;Whether it is Kolkata or Kashmir, Muslims are treated the same way,8221; said Ali, a petty trader.

Kumar, however, said, 8220;If you have evidence, you have to arrest that person.8221; Regarding the alleged bias, he said, 8220;We have officers from every community.8221;

It may be recalled that on December 29, Kumar had claimed, 8220;Aftab Ansari ferried RDX for the Lucknow blasts. The CID, after its own investigation, had located two persons by that name in North 24 Parganas. Following this, the CID secretly took photographs of these two persons and sent them to Lucknow, and two DSPs of the STF came to Kolkata. A four-member team of the CID arrested him, while he was returning from Lake Town to Cossipore.8221;

The CID had arrested Aftab on December 27, but kept him incommunicado till December 29. It was only after Aftab8217;s family filed the missing person8217;s diary with the Chitpore police that the CID released the news of his arrest and crowed about its success in nabbing a 8220;terrorist8221; allegedly involved in the November 23 serial blasts in UP courts.

Despite the assertions by Aftab, his family and neighbours that it was a case of mistaken identity, the CID had handed him over to UP8217;s STF, which took him to Lucknow.

Before Aftab was taken away, the CID had spread stories that Aftab, despite being a mere head mazdoor, led a lavish lifestyle. In reality, Aftab and six other family members have been living in a 10ft by 12ft tiled hut in a slum at Cossipore.

Aftab8217;s sister Afsana said she8217;s waiting for her brother. 8220;He is the only earning member and can hardly save anything from his Rs 7,000 monthly salary.8221;

Wahid Alam Ansari, Aftab8217;s teenaged brother, said, 8220;I have not been going to school since his arrest.

I was afraid of what would people say.8221;

An enraged Mehmood Alam, a mason who is Aftab8217;s neighbour, told this reporter, 8220;Why don8217;t you write about our plight? When we go out on work, people say terrorists stay in Cossipore slums.8221;