Arrested for alleged complicity in the Lajpat Nagar blasts when he was just 16, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah was acquitted when he was 30. Haroon Reshi spends time with him and brings out a moving picture of gross human rights violation.
After 14 long years of imprisonment, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah (now 30) finds it difficult to resume his life at the same pace and with the same passion as he could have done nearly one and a half decades back.
In early 1996, he had just passed his 11th standard examination from the Gandhi Memorial College in Srinagar when he planned a visit to Delhi where his two elder brothers stayed in connection with their (Kashmir Art) business.
The 16-year-old boy was full of joy as he left his home in the Lal Bazar area of Srinagar in April 1996. It was his first tour outside Kashmir. He could have never imagined that he would not be able to see his family for the coming 14 years.
Maqbool’s journey out of Kashmir proved to be a horrible turning point in his life. A few days after he arrived in Delhi, a bomb blast ripped through the Lajpat Nagar market in south Delhi, killing 13 people and injuring 38.
Soon after the incident, the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested 10 accused from different parts of the country. Maqbool was among them. Nine of the arrested people, including a woman, hailed from Kashmir. Mohammad Naushad, the sole exception, was from Delhi. Maqbool, the youngest of the accused, was initially kept in the juvenile jail of Tihar for a couple of years and was later shifted to the main prison.
On April 8, 2010, a Delhi court convicted 6 of the 10 accused and acquitted four others, including Maqbool.
Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mirza Nissar (both from Srinagar) and Mohammad Naushad were sentenced to death and three others, including the woman, were held guilty under the Explosive Substances Act and the Arms Act to face a maximum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment.
Maqbool is now trying to resume his normal life but he is still shaken, physically as well as mentally. His happiness at rejoining his family has been overshadowed by the pain of losing his father and sister during the period he was in prison. Before entering his Srinagar home on April 11, Maqbool went to the cemetery to pay his respects to his father Syed Muhammad Shah and sister Hadeesa Bano. He embraced the graves and broke into tears.
Everyone else was in tears too. His father died a year after his arrest while his 24-year-old sister passed away a month after she had visited him at Tihar. Family members say that both the father and his daughter were traumatised by Maqbool’s arrest.
When Maqbool returned home, the first thing he noticed was a huge walnut tree in the middle of the lawn. The tree was planted by his father a few years before Maqbool’s arrest. “I was stunned to see a huge tree with fruits as it was very small when I had seen it last time,” Maqbool tells TSI. “Every thing has changed here. It is like a new world for me,” he adds.
These days, youngsters at home, are teaching him how to operate a mobile phone as there were no mobile phones in Kashmir (due to security reasons) when Maqbool had left home 14 years back.
“There was only one landline in this whole area at that time and now every person is having a mobile phone in his pocket,” he exclaims.
“I have learnt how to receive a call. I can also play a game. Now I am learning how to find contact numbers from the phone memory,” he says.
Maqbool is excited in a similar way about the “money machine”. One of his childhood friends took him to an ATM to show him how it worked.
After 14 long years of imprisonment, Syed Muhammad Maqbool Shah (now 30) finds it difficult to resume his life at the same pace and with the same passion as he could have done nearly one and a half decades back.
In early 1996, he had just passed his 11th standard examination from the Gandhi Memorial College in Srinagar when he planned a visit to Delhi where his two elder brothers stayed in connection with their (Kashmir Art) business.
The 16-year-old boy was full of joy as he left his home in the Lal Bazar area of Srinagar in April 1996. It was his first tour outside Kashmir. He could have never imagined that he would not be able to see his family for the coming 14 years.
Maqbool’s journey out of Kashmir proved to be a horrible turning point in his life. A few days after he arrived in Delhi, a bomb blast ripped through the Lajpat Nagar market in south Delhi, killing 13 people and injuring 38.
Soon after the incident, the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested 10 accused from different parts of the country. Maqbool was among them. Nine of the arrested people, including a woman, hailed from Kashmir. Mohammad Naushad, the sole exception, was from Delhi. Maqbool, the youngest of the accused, was initially kept in the juvenile jail of Tihar for a couple of years and was later shifted to the main prison.
On April 8, 2010, a Delhi court convicted 6 of the 10 accused and acquitted four others, including Maqbool.
Mohammad Ali Bhatt, Mirza Nissar (both from Srinagar) and Mohammad Naushad were sentenced to death and three others, including the woman, were held guilty under the Explosive Substances Act and the Arms Act to face a maximum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment.
Maqbool is now trying to resume his normal life but he is still shaken, physically as well as mentally. His happiness at rejoining his family has been overshadowed by the pain of losing his father and sister during the period he was in prison. Before entering his Srinagar home on April 11, Maqbool went to the cemetery to pay his respects to his father Syed Muhammad Shah and sister Hadeesa Bano. He embraced the graves and broke into tears.
Everyone else was in tears too. His father died a year after his arrest while his 24-year-old sister passed away a month after she had visited him at Tihar. Family members say that both the father and his daughter were traumatised by Maqbool’s arrest.
When Maqbool returned home, the first thing he noticed was a huge walnut tree in the middle of the lawn. The tree was planted by his father a few years before Maqbool’s arrest. “I was stunned to see a huge tree with fruits as it was very small when I had seen it last time,” Maqbool tells TSI. “Every thing has changed here. It is like a new world for me,” he adds.
These days, youngsters at home, are teaching him how to operate a mobile phone as there were no mobile phones in Kashmir (due to security reasons) when Maqbool had left home 14 years back.
“There was only one landline in this whole area at that time and now every person is having a mobile phone in his pocket,” he exclaims.
“I have learnt how to receive a call. I can also play a game. Now I am learning how to find contact numbers from the phone memory,” he says.
Maqbool is excited in a similar way about the “money machine”. One of his childhood friends took him to an ATM to show him how it worked.
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