– Shakilur Rahman
New Delhi, March 18: Javed Mohammad is out of Deoria jail after spending over a year in prison for no fault of his own. He was arrested on June 11, 2022. Allahabad High Court on Saturday granted bail to the Secretary General of Welfare Party of India, Uttar Pradesh. He got bail in all the eight cases. UP police had alleged that Javed was “mastermind” in the violence breaking out in the city over blasphemous remarks made by a BJP leader against the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. However, he was not even involved in this procession, and on his Facebook page he had proposed to adopt another alternative method instead of taking out this procession.
The translated version of the text written originally in Hindi on Facebook is, “If you want to speak to the government on any issue, the best way is to present your point or demand through a memorandum after taking time from the officials. This city has always been peace-loving. In view of the situation, we should silently offer Juma Namaz and pray to Allah for the sake of peace, everyone has the right to express their views within the legal limits. Let us all prepare a memorandum together and send it to the State Government or the Central Government, His Excellency the President, through the District Officer. No one should gather on the road unnecessarily due to which the entire community has to suffer loss. Go to your home after Juma and pray so that peace and love prevails.”
After his arrest, the house he was living in was bulldozed although the house was in his wife’s name. Eight FIRs were registered against him. Allahabad High Court accepted that the case is baseless and he has got bail in all the cases.
There is no section in Indian law to demolish the house of an accused of any ‘crime’, however, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has often seen this illegal demolition drive being carried out to punish the accused in its ruling states across the country. Most of whom are Muslims. However, many people condemned the police demolition campaign as “undemocratic and repressive”.
Even after the Allahabad High Court found no evidence that Javed Mohammad was behind the violence in Prayagraj on June 10 and granted him bail three times, the UP police kept the social activist jailed for over a year by arresting him in one case after another – a total of eight and preventive detention order. In one FIR, the police claimed street lights were broken to “take advantage of the darkness”, but it is well recorded the violence occurred during the afternoon.
After Mohammad secured bail in five cases – two from the lower court and three from the Allahabad High Court – and his year-long preventive detention slapped under the National Security Act, 1980 came to an end in July, the UP police arrested him in August in three cases related to Gangster Act. Javed Mohammad got bail in the above cases in February 2024.
The UP police may have jailed him for a year even though they have no specific allegation related to the violence that erupted in June 2022 but had nothing to show that he was the “mastermind” behind it.
While granting bail to Mohmmad in FIR 118/2022 of Khuldabad police station in February 2023, Justice Ajay Bhanot of the Allahabad High Court had observed that the state could not “satisfactorily refute” the arguments from the defence.
“He is a law-abiding citizen who holds the unity of the country and amity between various communities very close to his heart,” said Justice Bhanot. “The applicant has neither posted nor shall post any messages which disrupt social harmony in the society.”
The “applicant has been scapegoated as he has opposed certain powerful political interests,” said Justice Bhanot, “the applicant did not instigate any violence”, and “there is no credible evidence to establish that the applicant instigated the mob or indulged in acts of violence”.
Now the question arises how will the damage caused to his image be compensated? Will the Uttar Pradesh government get his house rebuilt?
