Shoaib Jagirdar and and his teenaged nephew Imran Khan are free after 16 months in jail but what happened to them is likely to haunt them forever.
Both Shoaib and Imran, who were among the four persons acquitted by a Hyderabad court in a terror related case earlier this week, say they want to forget everything but the nightmares keep coming back.
The police had charged them with criminal conspiracy to wage war against the state for allegedly supplying RDX that was used in the Mecca Masjid blast in 2007. A Hyderabad sessions judge threw out the case as the prosecution could not provide evidence in support of the charges.
The others acquitted are are Hyderabad youth Mohammed Abdul Kaleem and Abdul Majeed.
"Even after this acquittal the police are not willing to let us go. They had planned to re-arrest me as soon as I came out of prison," said Imran Khan, a third year engineering student.
Both Shoaib and Imran detailed to rediff.com how they were framed and their reputation ruined in the media. "The police tried to make us scapegoats as they could not catch the real culprits in the blast," said Shoaib.
Shoaib Jagirdar, a resident of Jalna in Maharashtra, was arrested a week after the blast in the historic Mecca Masjid killed five people on May 18, 2007.
"I was brutally tortured by the police who wanted me to confess my involvement in the blast. But I refused because I had nothing to do with it or any illegal activity," he said.
After they failed even after threatening to shoot him in a fake encounter, the police finally booked him in a case of attempting to secure a passport on false papers. "The Joint Commissioner of Police Harish Kumar Gupta told other officers in my presence that since they had projected me as a terrorist in the media they cannot afford to let me go. So they booked me in this fake passport case," said Jagirdar, a kerosene dealer.
A few days after his detention, the police also picked up his nephew Imran Khan from Boenpally area of Hyderabad. "The police suddenly raided our house and started searching the place. After looking at all the family members, they decided to take me along with them. Till then they did not know even my name," said Imran.
"I was kept in illegal detention for several days and subjected to third degree torture at a guest house near Kompally area. They used inhuman methods like giving electric shock and not allowing me to sleep for three days," said Imran.
"At one point it became unbearable and I confessed to whatever the police wanted. I even fell at Gupta's and Inspector Ramachandran's feet to spare my life," he said.
The police wanted Imran to confess that he and his uncle Shoiab had supplied the RDX for the blasts. "In my life I have never seen any explosive leave alone RDX," Imran said.
Both Imran and Shoiab were subjected to a narco test in Bangalore but nothing came out of it. However, the police officials told the local media that both had confessed.
"The police wanted me to confess that I had undergone terrorist training in Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the reality is that I have never set foot outside Hyderabad," said Imran. The police also told the media that it suspected the involvement of Shoaib and Imran in the twin blast cases at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat.
Though they have been acquitted in the criminal conspiracy case, the fake passport case is still pending against Shoaib.
Shoiab said he was attacked by the other inmates in the Charalapally jail and that he was also tortured.
Imran has also suffered badly. His father, a driver in a central government organisation, was taunted as the 'father of a terrorist'. When Imran's father went to pay his fees for his engineering exam, the college chairman told him that they cannot allow a terrorist to sit in the examination.
But Shoiab is determined to complete his engineering. "The court verdict has strengthened our faith in the judiciary and justice has been. But nobody can compensate the loss of two academic years."
If not an engineer, Imran wants to become a journalist to fight for other victims of police atrocities. "The wrong reports in the media have caused lot of damage to our reputation and I don't want this to happen to even an enemy," he said.
