PFI accuses cops of illegally detaining innocent Muslims

PFI accuses cops of illegally detaining innocent Muslims

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Sep 14, 2012: Delivering the presidential address at a public awareness meeting organized by the Popular Front of India (PFI) at Town Hall in Mangalore on September 13, Thursday, Ilyas Mohammed Thumbay, president of the Karnataka state unit of the PFI, lamented that, although India is a democratic country with a Constitution that promises equal rights to all its citizens, hundreds of innocent young Muslims have been wrongly imprisoned all over the country. 

The PFI had held this meeting as part of its nationwide campaign to demand the release of innocent Muslim youth put behind bars all over India. 

 

Speaking on the occasion, advocate Hamzat Hejamady said that the police do not follow the norms laid by the National Human Rights Commission during encounters. Stating that the police wrongly use the right to self-defense provision for encounter deaths, he said that a killing is considered legal under the right to self-defense provision only if the deceased was making an attempt to murder the defendant. He complained that police surround a person and then say that they fired only after the other party fired. 

Mr. Hejamady urged the public to book policemen involved in fake encounters. Victims of illegal detention by the police must not hesitate to bring this to the notice of senior police officers and to submit a petition to the High Court. Victims can also demand documents such as the first information report (FIR), inquest, and pachanam and file private complaints at the local court, he said.  

Suresh Bhat Bakrabail of the Komu Souharda Vedike was also present.