Residents of Borivali village in Thane district have written to Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, imploring him to direct the police to stop ‘‘terrorising’’ the village and implicating residents in the March 13 Mulund blast. They say that the village, which has 4,000 residents including 3,000 Muslims, has always been an oasis of peace and that the police are deliberately painting a picture of it being a hotbed of terrorist activities.The police repeatedly conduct midnight raids and randomly arrest villagers, who are then booked under POTA, they say, pointing out that these atrocities are being perpetrated only because the police are hard-pressed to show results. Though the police are armed with the theory that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is behind the blast, they are actually clueless about the perpetrators, the villagers add.During a raid on March 27, the police named 32 villagers, around 200-300 ‘‘unknown’’ men and 40-50 women as accused. Since there is no evidence to link the villagers to the blast, the police have been arresting residents in old cases in order to secure and extend their custody, the letter states. One so-called accused was finally released after 40 days.On the liberal use of POTA, the villagers point out that the act is being used to settle political scores or to falsely implicate innocent people. The police action in Borivali has violated their fundamental right to life and personal liberty, they say.They also point out that due to the image of the village which the police have projected, no one dares venture near Borivali. Alternatively, since the residents are too scared to leave their homes for fear of police harassment, supplies have dwindled and residents could ‘‘starve to death’’. They have therefore urged Bhujbal to:• Set up a committee comprising human rights activists, lawyers and intellectuals to review the application of POTA to the villagers.• Direct the police to conduct a free and fair investigation into the blast.• Direct the police not to terrorise the villagers including relatives of persons arrested.• Set up a joint committee of village elders and the local police to maintain communal harmony and to rebuild the people’s faith in the police.
