Plight of ‘kind Muslim man’ wrongly held for Mecca Masjid led Swami to confess: Police

The man,Sheikh Abdul Khaleem,was among 15 arrested earlier by the Hyderabad Police investigating the Mecca Masjid blast. On November 13,2008,The Indian Express reported that an Andhra Pradesh government panel had confirmed that these Muslim men,picked up for the Mecca Masjid blast of May 18,2007 and the Lumbini Park and Gokul Chaat House blasts of August 26 that year,were tortured for as long as six months.

The May blast killed nine people,the August blasts killed 42.

Khaleem,19 then and working as a lab technician,was arrested soon after. According to the panel’s report,he was blindfolded and taken to an unknown destination,beaten on the soles of his feet,stripped and then administered shots through a “small machine”.

Aseemanand was arrested on November 19 last year from Haridwar in Uttarakhand,after he had changed location over 30 times,travelling across several states over two years to evade arrest. According to investigators,he was “not cooperating” in the initial days after his arrest.

Though he was in the CBI’s custody for a few days in between,he spent most of the period from November 20 to December 24 in judicial custody,in solitary confinement in Chanchalaguda Jail where nearly 70 per cent of the inmates are Muslim. It was here that Aseemanand came in touch with Khaleem.

Sources said Khaleem was “very kind and helpful” to Aseemanand,who they feared could get roughed up. Khaleem

would read aloud newspaper reports about the Mecca Masjid bomb blast case and would provide him with warm water to drink and and share his home food with him.

Throughout these interactions,Khaleem introduced himself as an accused arrested in a mobile smuggling case. It was the jail warden who told Aseemanand that Khaleem had been arrested earlier in relation to the Mecca Masjid blast case.

In his confession statement,Aseemanand said it was Khaleem’s “good conduct” that moved his conscience.

He found out during his time in custody that Khaleem had spent nearly a year and half in custody in the blast case,the confession reads. It says,“During my stay in the jail,Kalim helped me a lot and used to serve me in the jail by bringing water,food,etc for me. Due to good conduct of Kalim I was very much moved and my conscience asked me to do prayschit by making a confessional statement so that real culprits can be punished in the present case and no innocent had to suffer…”

Jail sources said that Aseemanand had a highly disciplined routine. He was allowed out of his solitary cell at 6 am to take a short walk,exercises,and a bath. He returned to his cell at 6:30 am when about 670 other prisoners held in various barracks would be let out for the morning.

A small group of 8-10 “good conduct” prisoners,let out in the morning to assist jail staff,would watch Aseemanand take a walk. It was during these morning walks that Aseemanand came in touch with Kaleem who would hand over water to Aseemananad,get him food,or just walk back with him to his cell.

Kaleem was in jail for the second time in four years. After the May 18,2007,blast at Mecca Masjid,he was picked up by police as one of the suspects but freed in December 2008 after a court dismissed all charges against him. On January 2010,his brother Abdul Khaja alias Amjad,was arrested in a joint operation by AP,TN and Kolkata Police from Chennai. He was accused of being a terror operative with links with Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami,Bangladesh (HuJI),Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

On October 12,2010,police arrested Kaleem on the charge that he was trying to give a mobile phone to his brother Abdul Khaja who is lodged in the Cherlapally Jail. Kaleem was back at Chanchalguda Jail where on November 20,Swami Aseemanand was also brought in.

Aseemanand sought to know who the young man was and was told by jail staff that Kaleem was arrested and tortured after being wrongly implicated in the Mecca Masjid blast.