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| From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 32, Dated Aug 16, 2008 |
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| CURRENT
AFFAIRS |
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personal accounts |
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Dissent Or Don’t,
You’re Damned
Either Way
Since when did protest get you called a jehadi?
Ask M. Elliyas, jailed under a ludicrous law, Reports AJIT SAHI
ONE MORNING in July, a nattily dressed man named
M. Elliyas arrived at the SIMI tribunal’s sitting at Mumbai
and, speaking confidently in English, demanded that
his name be struck off the background note that the Centre had
issued with its February 7 notification banning SIMI. The note alleged
that Elliyas “incited” local Muslims in Pune, who “staged a
demonstration” to protest the municipality razing some illegal
construction. “When exactly did this happen?” he asked the battery
of Central Government
lawyers, who shuffled papers
and hummed and
hawed but couldn’t find
more details of their own
allegations against him. He
volunteered: on the day of
the event he was visiting the
municipal office to find how
to make a birth certificate
for his newly-born daughter.
Even the local police
have never questioned him
in that case. Then why
name him in the background
note?
But Elliyas, a successful,
40-year-old IT consultant
who topped his Microsoft
exam with 99 percent
marks, is hardly surprised.
Elliyas was a SIMI member
during the 1990s and retired
when he turned 30,
three years before the ban.
In the seven years since the
ban on SIMI, the Maharashtra police have harassed him no end.
He told TEHELKA that when the police couldn’t find anything
against him, they booked him under a humiliating law called the
‘Maharashtra Bad Persons, Slumlords and Bootleggers Act’. It is
ridiculous that Elliyas spent a year in jail in 2001 under this law.
In his affidavit, Elliyas wrote that the statement against him in
the background note “seems to reflect the Central Government’s
intolerance of any democratic expression by Muslim members of
the public and an attempt is being made to link every such expression
with the activities of SIMI to stifle the same”. When Tribunal
Judge Geeta Mittal sought to soothe him, Elliyas, in a
voice choked with controlled emotion, asked: “What does this
government want? Should we actually become terrorists?” •
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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 32, Dated Aug 16, 2008
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The Thin Red Line
TARUN J TEJPAL
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The Kafka Project
In a crucial investigation over three months, Editor-at-Large AJIT SAHI tracked the SIMI fictions across 11 cities
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Inside The Whale: State Vs Shahid Badr Falahi
In case after case, the ex-president of SIMI has been the target of the law agencies’ absurd yet sinister charges, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The Good Doctor's Complications
Absolved by several courts, a former SIMI office-bearer continues to face the stigma that bars him from home and job, Reports AJIT SAHI
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They just want Muslim boys to always be in jail
Moutasim Billah has been a police scapegoat for seven years, even though they acknowledge they have nothing on him, Reports AJIT SAHI
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A Doubtful Crime, And Years Of Unfair Punishment
Yasin Patel is the only SIMI activist to be convicted under POTA. His crime was nothing more serious than an offensive poster, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The Cry Of The Beloved Country
Chilling stories of fathers and brothers swallowed by midnight arrests, as family members lack the resources for legal redr, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The Haunt Of Our Past Lives
A leading Muslim outfit in Tamil Nadu is accused of killing Hindus. But the Centre’s lawyers can’t remember their own evidence, Reports AJIT SAHI
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SIMI Here, SIMI There, SIMI Everywhere
This SIMI litigation is an omnibus case in which the 100 plus accused are now always at hand to be implicated in future cases, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The History Appraiser Caught With His Books
Among Abdul Razik’s crimes: books, old issues of a SIMI magazine and a talk on Muslims in the freedom struggle, Reports AJIT SAHI
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A Man Of God, Not A Man Of Terror
The Centre casually links a septuagenarian religious leader with SIMI — and then fails to sustain its reckless accusation against him, Reports AJIT SAHI
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Dissent Or Don’t, You’re Damned Either Way
Since when did protest get you called a jehadi? Ask M. Elliyas, jailed under a ludicrous law, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The Left Hand Doesn't Know, Or Doesn't It?
The bizarre case of Ziauddin Siddiqui, injured in a clash with police, given compensation — and then accused of rioting and sedition, Reports AJIT SAHI
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The Case Of The Absconding Lawyer
Midway through the tribunal, a key SIMI lawyer is suddenly arrested in an old, forgotten case and released as arguments end, Reports AJIT SAHI
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A Judge Stirs A Hornet's Nest
Mere opinions, a stunning abscence of facts and gross violations of law in the Centre’s case against SIMI are what moved tribunal judge Geeta Mittal to reject the ban, Reports AJIT SAHI
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‘The Supreme Court’s stay is a murder of justice’
Despite the setback, SIMI’s ex-president Shahid Badr Falahi is confident the body will be legitimate again, Reports AJIT SAHI
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Terror Has Two Faces
A shadowy, pan-Islamic seditious organisation or merely a conservative Islamist and politically conscious student group? Read and draw your own conclusions on SIMI, Reports AJIT SAHI
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