Khan Rukhma
On 18 August, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, a common welder from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh was allegedly tortured by the police Because Zubair, one of Ahmad’s employees eloped with a Hindu girl who was his neighbour’s daughter in Lucknow’s Salimpur Pitora.
Over a phone call Ahmad tells The Kashmiriyat that when his neighbour Chotu Kashyap filed a complaint about her daughter’s affair with his employee Zubair, they took Ahmad into custody without any warrant. While moving to the police station they abused and tortured him brutally.
While recalling the horror of police torture he said, “They peed on my face. And forced me to lick the saliva after spitting on shoes. They pulled my beard and kicked me on my back and abused me a lot by calling ‘kathmulle’ again and again.”
“I was pleading and crying that I haven’t done anything, let me go, sir, I’ll help you to find that girl but leave me please” I pleaded. But Jitendar Dubey the police officer pulled my beard and started beating me again and called me with other abusive words”, Ahmad stated while shrieking over a phone call.
He further added, “They tortured me a lot madam. They took 15000 for travelling from my home to the police station and beat me a lot. They mistreated me a lot. They threatened me and abused me. They thrashed and took money from me.”
“Dubey beat me up with his elbow on my back after bowing me down by nabbing my beard.I folded my hands and fell on their feet to ask what I did, what my crime was”.
Later, Ahmad tells The Kashmiriyat that, “they forced me to drink alcohol and made me sit on the bottle. It was very painful but they forced me to sit so I requested with folded hands. But they abused me.”
He said, “I was extremely distressed by all this. I didn’t go home for 4 days after all this. I closed my shop. I was so stressed that I couldn’t sleep for many days. They extorted around Rs.75,000 from me. 15000 for travelling and 60,000 to the Inspector. And later 12,000 for the bail”.
Ahmad spent 28 hours in jail and got bail. But they tortured him every day and the neighbours asked him to leave the locality. The torture was going on for one month but one day an advocate saw Ahmad crying during his namaz and asked him about what’s his problems, after that the cops yielded.
“The incident happened a month ago, but it still haunts me”. I faced this just because I’m a Muslim. Keeping a beard is a crime in India. Why do they count keeping a beard is a crime?”
The girl was later found to be in Panipat, Haryana.
Ahmad’s allegations came to light after a journalist Urooj Khan posted a video in which Fakhruddin talked about the torture and broke down.