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On October 5 last year, Masud Ahmed passed through Mathura, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, when a group of policemen waved to him.
The officers who were manning the checkpoint asked him and the three co-passengers questions, including their names, affiliation, and purpose of travel.
The 26-year-old student activist, wearing a gray button-down shirt and a blue hat with a short beard, told the officers that they were heading to a small town in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, which is a short distance from Mathura. ) 43 kilometers (26 miles) away from the capital New Delhi, about 200 kilometers (124 miles).
These four people are going to know the family of a 19-year-old Dalit boy who was Gang rape Three weeks before the start of the journey, it was composed of four Hindu upper class members.
The Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables”, are at the lowest level in India’s complex Indian caste hierarchy. They have been oppressed by Indians for centuries, and they have been oppressed by the privileged class.
The woman was dragged out of the field and raped and was seriously injured. As a result of the attack, her tongue was severed and her spinal cord was broken.
Last September 29th, she Last breath In a hospital in New Delhi.
That night, the Uttar Pradesh police secretly cremated her body without her family’s consent. The latter stated that they were Locked in their house During cremation.
The rape of Dalit women and their subsequent burning by the police caused widespread anger, and demonstrations were held in different parts of the country against the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state.
Ahmed and three others, including journalists Siddique Kappan, Decided to go to Hatteras to meet the families of the victims.
However, the four men were stopped by the police and asked to leave the car. They were then taken to the local police station and charged with breaching public peace, which is a bailable crime.
My son became a victim because the arrest of Muslims was the headline news.
But this is only the beginning of their suffering.
“What he did to that girl shocked him. All he did was visit her family in unity and share their pain as a student activist,” Ahmed’s brother Morris, 32, Monis Ahmed Khan told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed (Ahmed) is a resident of Bahraich in northeastern Uttar Pradesh and is the head of students at the Campus Frontier (CFI) in India.
CFI is a student faction of the People’s Front of India (PFI), a Muslim organization with a pan-Indian presence. It is often accused by Indian authorities of “extremist” links. The organization denies this accusation.
The other persons arrested along with Ahmed are 27-year-old Atiq-ur Rehman and 30-year-old Mohd Alam from Uttar Pradesh, and 41-year-old Kappan from the southern state of Kerala.
It took Khan two days to obtain a bail permit to release his brother, but the police have other plans.
On October 7, the four men were charged with “conspiracy to cause caste violence in the state” and charged with sedition and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which is a strict anti-terrorism law. Allow up to 180 days of detention free of charge.
“This news shocked all of us. He is not a criminal or a terrorist, but a student activist fighting for injustice.”
Masud Ahmed shouted slogans during a campus demonstration in New Delhi [Courtesy: Monis Ahmed Khan]
Ahmed’s family, friends, and student activists recalled that he was a fierce young student leader, and he hoped to serve his people by joining the federal bureaucracy that the Indian dream wanted.
They now worry that it may be too late to realize his dream before the country’s painful and slow judicial process and before letting him realize his innocence.
Journalism and campus activities
Eight years ago, Ahmed moved to Delhi to pursue a master’s degree in journalism at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), a well-known university established by Muslims in India. Established in the freedom movement against British rule.
Soon, he found himself involved in student political activities on campus.
Safoora Zargar, a student leader and research scholar from JMI, said that in addition to studying, Ahmed spends most of his time communicating student dissatisfaction to the university administration.
Zagar told Al Jazeera: “He is a leader fighting for the rights of students. He always stands on the right and fair position without worrying about the consequences.”
Zargar was also charged with UAPA last year for participating in a protest against a controversial citizenship law passed by the government of UAPA Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was sentenced to prison last year. Weeks.
Ahmed will visit a slum near his university to encourage children to go to school and help them fill out scholarship application forms to continue their studies.
After completing the journalism course, he interned for the news website BeyondHeadlines in New Delhi, which mainly reports on political and social issues related to Indian minorities (mainly Muslims).
Ahmed (Ahmed), left, an assignment during his internship at BeyondHeadlines in 2015 [Courtesy: Masud Ahmed’s Facebook]
In August 2016, he rejoined JMI and took another Master of Public Administration program.
In the same year, the Modi government announced a plan to abolish the minority status of JMI, which allowed the university to reserve 50% of the seats for students in the Muslim community, which has a relatively low proportion of the education system in India.
When people were angry at this move, college students launched a protest movement with Ahmed as one of its leaders.
In 2017, he participated in another round of protests demanding the resumption of the JMI Student Union, which was banned by the university administration in 2006.
Aman Qurashi, a 23-year-old student activist at JMI, told Al Jazeera: “He strongly recommends that students be provided with a democratic space on campus to express their dissatisfaction and will always lead from the front.”
After completing the second master’s program in 2018, Ahmed broke away from campus politics and began to prepare for the acclaimed Indian Administrative Service Exam.
He even rejected applications for MBA admissions and scholarships from Cardiff Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom.
“He wants to serve the poor and marginalized,” Ahmed’s JMI classmate Harmeet Kaur, now a student in Cardiff, told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed sat in front of the graffiti on the JMI wall, trying to restore the student union [Courtesy: Masud Ahmed’s Facebook]Muslim arrests make headlines
Ahmed’s 51-year-old mother, Chand Bibi, has been glued to a prayer blanket since October, seeking God’s intervention. When the prison authorities allowed a one-minute call to speak with her son, she desperately waited for Monday.
According to Bibi, Ahmed and three others were used as “scapegoats” to divert attention from the Uttar Pradesh government’s controversial handling of the rape and murder of Dalit women.
“My son became a victim because the arrest of Muslims was the headline news. Everything has been done and the focus has been shifted from the Haslas case.” Bibi told Al Jazeera.
Saifan Shaikh, Ahmed’s lawyer, stated that most of the cases against him were based on his activism against BJP and its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including his Critical Facebook and Twitter posts.
Sheikh told Al Jazeera: “His student enthusiasm and opposition to the government are also the main reasons for his imprisonment.”
He wants to serve the poor and marginalized.
The lawyer also accused the police of torturing Ahmed in custody.
“The Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent-level police officers kicked, slapped and tortured him. Sheikh was told that Muslims should be imprisoned.”
On April 2, the Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh Police submitted a 5,000-page indictment to the Mathura Court against Ahmed, Kappan, Rahman, Alam and four others who were later added to the case. .
The defendant’s lawyer has not received a copy of the allegation, only a 22-page summary. In the summary seen by Al Jazeera, 44 of the 55 people referred to as prosecution witnesses were police officers.
Allegedly, bank transfers of 2500 rupees (35 U.S. dollars) in 2018 were seen as evidence of Ahmed’s “direct connection” with PFI. He is proficient in Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala, which is believed to be the reason why he is regarded as a reliable figure in the Muslim community.
Sheikh said: “The intention of the police is to fabricate a story and ensure that he suffers from long-term jail.”
Fear of prison security
Ahmed’s family worried about his safety in prison. In a call in March, he told them that he was concerned about physical attacks by prisoners transferred to his prison unit.
“Because of his Muslim status and the accusations against him, he is considered anti-national and there are attempts to attack him. He is afraid they will put something in his food to kill him,” Ahmed’s brother Khan said.
He wrote several letters to state officials, including police chief Hitesh Awasthy, to ensure the safety of his brother, but received no response.
Sheikh also accused the prison authorities of “continuous mental abuse and treated him as a slave.” He said that prison staff refused to read Ahmed or eat on time, which forced him to work hard and sometimes left him in a state of isolation.
“They violated all his human rights,” Sheikh told Al Jazeera.
Separation from her son has caused damage to Bibi’s physical and mental health, but she said it will not weaken her determination to prove her son’s innocence.
“He stood up against injustice,” she burst into tears. “Now I will not allow anyone to do unjust things to him.”
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