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"For the people of Nuh who have been struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of 31 July 2023, repression has become a material fact of their daily lives."
This is stated by a recently-released report by People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) titled, 'In the wake of Nuh: A report on state repression' which has brought forth some important details in a 70-page report.
A year ago, Nuh district in Haryana witnessed violence during the annual ‘Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra.' Now, on 22 July this year, the same Yatra passed Nuh, this time it was peaceful and controlled.
However, the violence last year left a deep impact, especially on the lives of local Muslims. The report accuses the police of deploying excessive force, torture and using communal slurs.
PUDR conducted fact-finding visits in Nuh town, Nagina tehsil and nearby villages between August 2023 and June 2024.
The team spoke to a wide cross-section of people, both Hindu and Muslim, and accused persons released on bail, the families of those still in custody, lawyers, other Nuh residents and police officials.
"Of 441 arrests till June 2024, 427 were of Muslims and 14 of Hindus. One, the police filed a total of 46 FIRs for the chain of violent incidents in Nuh and Nagina of which 45 are filed against known or unknown Muslim men including minors," reads the report.
Now, the vast majority of the 441 arrested have been released on bail, though police officers have not given the exact number.
But since many of the arrested persons were from impoverished families, they reported great difficulty in furnishing bail bonds.
In fact, they are having a hard time carrying on with their lives since the violence as many spoke about their inability to find or resume regular work or study after release on bail due to these day-long court appearances.
"...The aftermath makes clear that the events of 31 July provided a pretext for state repression targeting Muslims that continues till date. The most obvious detail of this repression is evident from the fact that the police did not file FIRs against any of the Hindu yatris besides Bittu Bajrangi, even while it was known that many in the rally were armed," the PUDR report stated.
From Arbitrary Arrests to Alleged Use of 'Roller Treatment'
Reportedly, over 1,200 houses, shops and vending stalls were demolished in 11 towns and villages, often without adequate notice.
The case of demolitions, PUDR said that Muslim community in the area "was singled out for summary punishment by state officials."
"Lawyers also raised apprehensions about the manner in which the police detained and arrested residents based on unclear footage and cell phone locations, especially since location needn’t confirm participation in riots as the alleged accused could have been in the vicinity for entirely different reasons including that of being home in a residential area close to the site of violence."
The PUDR team stated that the police brazenly flouted constitutional guidelines around arrest, as laid out by the Supreme Court in DK Basu judgment (1997).
To list a few, neither the arrestees nor their relatives were properly informed of the grounds of arrest, and on several occasions, their family members learned of their arrest only after they were produced in court.
After the death of a 52-years-old Jabbar Khan, the police maintained that he died of shock and not because of police brutality. However, locals told the PUDR team that when the police detained Khan’s sons, it pressured them into silence by threatening that they would falsely implicate them in a murder case.
The report alleges that police raids and arrests did not even spare persons with severe disabilities such as the case of Asif who has 75% orthopedic impairment.
"They abused, beat and arrested Asif and his brother, on grounds of their phone location." Even though he had insisted that since he's disabled, his location would show that he was home.
Besides cramped, dingy and unsanitary lock up rooms wherein as many as 20-22 were kept, there are also testimonies of physical torture under the garb of interrogation.
One of the two arrestees that PUDR spoke to said that he was "made to strip down to his underwear and beaten. CIA officials rubbed a chappal against his teeth." The other accused told PUDR that he was also made to take his clothes off and beaten in the CIA quarters.
One of the most serious allegations in the report is the use of ‘roller treatment’, a third-degree torture method using an iron roller weighing around 80 kilograms, which is often filled with cement so as to make it heavier still. It is used on the thighs and genitals for several minutes to cause pain.
The report stated:
"One arrestee told PUDR that he was subjected to the roller treatment seven times on one day, till he felt like the veins in his thighs had been destroyed and fainted from the pain, and then again three times the next day. The significance of the roller treatment, like other torture methods, is that it leaves no visible marks on the victims. Hence, medical examinations do not show how a victim has been tortured in custody."
The physical torture, according to the report, was aggravated by persistent mental torture too. Communal slurs were constantly hurled and many were abused with a common phrase that they looked like terrorists and asked if they came from Pakistan.
"One Nuh resident told PUDR that the police made him, and 11 other arrestees who were in police custody with him, chant Jai Shri Ram several times," read the report.
The Quint reached out to Haryana police for their response to these allegations. We will update the story when they respond.
How UAPA Was Included Almost 6 Months Later
The UAPA provisions were added in January-February 2024. Particularly, Section 10 (Penalty for being member of an unlawful association, etc) and 11 (Penalty for dealing with funds of an unlawful association) have been added.
PUDR stated, "Even though these do no attract the additional bail restrictions that attach to terror offences in the UAPA, the mere invocation of national security laws like the UAPA can influence bail."
UAPA was included in FIR FIR 257/2023 PS City Nuh (pertaining to the death of two Haryana Home Guards) and bail in this case was denied.
But one of the most important FIRs in this case: FIR 149/2023 (PS Nagina) is based on a complaint made by one Prem, a shopkeeper, about the looting and burning of goods in his shop at Badkali Chowk.
Congress leader Mamman Khan is an accused in this case was granted bail on October 18. However, UAPA charges were added later in February 2024 for his alleged involvement in the violence.
What were the police depending upon? Khan's social media posts.
As noted in the chargesheet, Khan's posts mainly stated that justice not been done for the murders of Nasir and Junaid in February 2023, that the police had failed in their duty, and that Monu Manesar should be taught the same lesson that he had served his victims.
Moreover, based on the confessions made by those in custody, the investigation held that Khan is the ‘chief conspirator’ of the Nuh violence.
But he got bail in FIR 149 where the court observed:
"There is no post from social media account of the applicant accused Mamman Khan inciting violence to a particular community against a particular community,” belying the police’s main allegations in the FIR 149 chargesheet.
The UAPA sections applied also come into question as they can only be applied if an 'unlawful' association is involved under Section 3 of UAPA.
The PUDR report states:
"There is no reported or publicly available information on alleged links between any such 'unlawful' association and the Nuh region, let alone what occurred on 31 July 2023. Thus, why the police added UAPA charges to these FIRs, and why it did so clandestinely, remain unanswered questions, particularly since no arrests appear to have been made on the basis of these newer charges."
On the whole, of the 89 sampled cases where the court passed detailed orders, the court noted the lack of any independent or corroborating evidence for arrest in 81 cases (91%).
The fallout of the Nuh violence has been especially hard for those accused who have been charged in multiple cases as their families have had to provide individual sureties for each bail application, the report further continued. Some bail sureties are as high as 50,000 each.
Due to these reasons, families of the victims have had to depend on relatives, neighbours and friends to meet the bail costs. As PUDR stated, "the costs of freedom from custody have been very high."
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