MUMBAI, 21 December 2007 — The credibility of the Mumbai police is once again under a cloud with Muslims accusing the force of bias. They allege that police killed 17-year-old Imran Shaikh in a fake encounter.
Mumbai police have denied the allegation saying Imran was a gangster loyal to Bunty Pandey who had allegedly demanded millions of rupees from famous film star Shah Rukh Khan. Police have said Imran was gunned down last Friday when he tried to kill a municipal councilor.
Imran’s parents, however, dispute the police version saying their son was not a criminal and that he was killed in a stage-managed encounter.
While Anti-Extortion Squad (AES) officers, who killed Imran claimed that the youth was 21 years old, Imran’s parents say he was only 17. According to AES officials, Imran and another gangster Ram Bahadur Sahani, both members of the Pandey gang, were gunned down when they had come to Powai to kill a municipal councilor.
Imran’s parents have decided to file a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission against “police atrocity against the Muslims.”
According to Imran’s father, Irfan Shaikh, his son had left the house in the morning. After he did not turn up, Irfan filed a case with the Deonar police on Dec. 10. Irfan said he learned through newspaper reports in the evening of Dec. 15 that Imran was killed in an encounter.
“No case against Imran has ever been filed in any police station. If it can be proved that he was a criminal, we would accept it. But if police fail to prove it, then those who killed the innocent boy should be punished,” said Irfan.
Imran’s younger brother Rizwan pointed out another discrepancy in the police story. “They said that Imran was a resident of Uttar Pradesh. But the fact is, Imran had never been to that part of India. It shows that police mistook him for someone else,” Rizwan said.
Expressing her strong resentment at the police action, the general secretary of the women’s wing of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Mahfooza Mohammed said that had Imran been a gangster, his family would have enjoyed a luxurious life instead of living in a cramped apartment in Govandi. Imran, she claimed, was a nice boy and used to work in a garage.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai police suffered another setback when the High Court yesterday set aside an externment order against former Dance Bar Owners Association President Manjit Singh Sethi.
A division bench comprising Justices R.M.S. Khandparkar and Amjad Sayed passing orders against the police said the externment order was issued with mala fide intentions and bias.
In its order passed against Sethi three months ago after the sessions court convicted him in a 1997 abduction case, the police said it had apprehensions that Sethi would cause “alarm to public” and that he was suspected of involvement in a prostitution racket.
Mahesh Jethmalani representing Sethi told the court that the police were harassing his client due to political pressure. The public prosecutor representing the Mumbai police, Satish Borulkar, told the court Sethi could have appealed to the higher police officials and there was no need for him to rush to the High Court.
