[Reader-list] Jamia truths: Wife says caretaker took tenancy form to police

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

Wife says caretaker took tenancy form to police

By Rohit Wadhwaney in New Delhi
Mail Today, 25 September 2008, mailtoday.in


BEDRIDDEN AND battling low blood pressure, 50-year-old Sakeena has
been constantly praying for the last few days for "truth" to prevail.
Lying almost motionless on a charpoy of her Joga Bai residence, a
stone's throw from Jamia Nagar, she says her son Zia-ur-Rehman and
husband Abdul Rehman — held in connection with the September 13 Delhi
serial blasts — have been "falsely implicated". "Zia was at home,
right in front of me, when the bomb blasts happened in Delhi. We were
watching the news together," Sakeena says. "How could he have planted
a bomb when he was right in front of my eyes all the while?"

Zia, 22, a third year BA Pass student of Jamia Millia Islamia
University, has been accused of planting one of the bombs in Connaught
Place's Central Park. Abdul Rehman, who works as a stenographer
with the National Highways Authority of India in Ghaziabad, is charged
with forging the tenant verification form of the L-18 Batla House
flat, where the alleged terrorists were putting up. Both were arrested
two days after the dramatic Friday morning encounter at the flat in
which two of Zia's friends, among the alleged mastermind of the Indian
Mujahideen terror outfit, were shot dead.

Sakeena says the father-son duo had, on their own, gone to the Jamia
Nagar police station "to clear their side of the story" after hearing
news of the encounter at the flat, which Abdul was taking care of on
behalf of its owner. They never returned home.

"About two months ago, the flat's owner got transferred. He asked my
husband to become the caretaker and give the house on rent — not to
families but just to students," says Sakeena. Abdul gave the house on
rent to Atif Ameen, shot dead in Friday's encounter, and some of his
friends, who claimed to be students, at Rs 7,000 a month. "He even got
the tenant verification done through the proper channels. Last Friday,
after Abdul returned from his prayers, he saw on television that there
was an encounter at L-18 Batla House, in fact in the same flat he was
taking care of. So he, along with my son Zia, immediately went to the
police station with all the tenant verification documents. They
couldn't find a single cop there. They returned home and phoned Aaj
Tak news channel and went to their studio with the documents. Their
interview was aired in the evening," says Sakeena. She says the very
next morning, the cops called Adbul and Zia to the Jamia Nagar police
station. "They went there on their own, but never came back."