Karnataka’s Quantum Qaidi

Accused No 24 of the 2008 Bangalore Blasts case exists in two places at the same time. Lodged in prison, he is ‘absconding’ as well

Mohammad Shamir, A 32-year- old originally from Kannur district in Kerala, finds himself in legal limbo. The 24th accused in the 2008 Bangalore Blasts case, he is officially on the run. So it says in court and police records. He also happens to be in jail.

Shamir is currently an undertrial lodged as prisoner No 14875 in Bangalore Central Prison. He has been here since late 2012. The sessions court attached to this prison began conducting the trial related to the blasts last May, but Shamir, who was not too far away in a Belgaum jail at the time (since last January in fact), has not been brought to the court even once. At every hearing, he is deemed ‘absconding’ by the prosecution.

Shamir’s story dates back to February 2009, when his younger brother Fajar Noufal, who was living in Kannur, got a call from a Special Branch police officer enquiring about call details of a mobile connection taken in his name. The number was being used by Shamir, who was working in Dubai as a taxi driver back then. The officer met Noufal and told him that ‘suspicious’ calls had been found being made to the number. “Those calls were made from a mobile number used by T Naseer (alleged Lashkar-e- Toiba commander of South India, the first accused in the Bangalore Blasts case),” according to Noufal, “There were six calls, all incoming, of which only two were received. There were no outgoing calls to Naseer’s number. [Though] I had given them Shamir’s contact number and address in Dubai, the officer asked me to inform them whenever Shamir came home. Nothing happened for the next six months.”

Then in July 2009, according to Noufal, two cops from Karnataka turned up at his door in search of Shamir. “The interrogation was repeated. We were still not clear what they were asking these questions for, or of any crime committed by Shamir. Over the span of a year, the Special Branch made persistent enquiries on when Shamir would return. Towards the end of 2011, Shamir called to say he had been asked to surrender his passport at the Indian embassy in Dubai, and in January 2012, Shamir was summoned to the embassy and taken into custody.”

On why Naseer may have contacted Shamir, his brother has this explanation: “Naseer is from our native place. He had been living here for a long time. We know him just as everyone else here does. Apart from that, we have no idea of his alleged anti-national activities.”

Shamir’s wife Shahina, who was with him in Dubai, had had no inkling of trouble. “He went for work early morning as usual,” she recounts, “By noon, I got a call from him. He told me he had been calling from the embassy and might not return. He asked me to go back to Kerala. I did not understand where he had gone. I did not understand what went wrong.”

Shahina returned to Kerala with their three-year-old son. “We received a call from Shamir on the day he was brought to Delhi,” she says. “There was no news of him for the next ten days.”

Shamir was deported to Delhi on 25 January 2012 and arrested at the arrival gate of India Gandhi International Airport. The next day’s newspapers had reports that left the family shocked by their distortions and outright lies, they say. ‘New Delhi airport immigration officials have apprehended a terror suspect linked to the 2008 Bangalore blasts as he was trying to fly out of the country,’ reported DNA. ‘The Delhi Police have taken into custody a Malayalee who is an accused in a string of terror-related cases, including the serial blasts in Bangalore in July, 2008. Sources said the police picked up Muhammad Shameer alias Shameer Fagnest, hailing from Thana in Kannur, from Delhi international airport on Wednesday,’ said The Times of India.

“After this, we hardly received any information on him,” says Mohammad Shahir, elder brother of Shamir—who had in fact been taken from Delhi to Bangalore, where he was produced before the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and remanded to judicial custody (which has not yet been lifted).

“We came to know that he had been taken to Karnataka,” says Shahir, “We filed a habeas corpus petition. It took two weeks to get a response from the local police on it. By then, Shamir had called us from Belgaum jail to say that he was imprisoned there.”

It turned out Shamir had been named as accused No 24—marked as ‘absconding’— in the 2010 chargesheet filed by the police on the Bangalore Blasts case. Shahir promptly went to Bangalore to move a bail plea for his brother. He met three lawyers but none was ready to take up the case. “I am told that lawyers in Bangalore are generally reluctant to take up such cases,” he says, “Finally, I met a lawyer who was ready, but he demanded Rs 3 lakh in advance.” The family did not have that kind of money.

By procedure, Shamir, the 24th accused in the case, should have been referred for trial to the sessions court before which all the other accused had already been presented. But Shamir stayed ‘absconding’ in Belgaum jail.

It was only a couple of months ago that Shamir’s family finally engaged a defence lawyer, when a Karnataka High Court practitioner by the name of BT Venkatesh finally took up the case. “Shamir’s case is an appalling example of how ruthless the system of policing in our country is,” says the lawyer, “A person is put behind bars and kept inside for nine months with no chargesheet supplied or even his arrest recorded. There were nine cases registered against him in connection with the blasts, but his arrest was recorded only in one.”

By law, if there are multiple cases filed against an accused, the arrest has to be put on the record of each. But it was only after nine months of judicial custody that Shamir’s arrest in the other eight cases was taken official note of.

To get Shamir a chance to appear in court, Venkatesh had to make an application to the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, asking him to direct the police to transfer Shamir from Belgaum jail. That is how he was brought to Bangalore Central Prison late last year. But, bizarrely, his ‘absconding’ status stays unchanged.

The sessions court even rejected a petition filed by Venkatesh to order the prosecution to produce Shamir for trial. Its stated reason: ‘It is not clear whether this accused person has been arrested in this particular case or any other case.’ The prosecution had argued that there was ‘no case pending against the accused in this court’ and also that the court should not start recording a statement of the accused till he’s produced before it.

“Though the police had technically won the argument, they were alert to the consequences of denying my client natural justice,” says Venkatesh. So Shamir was handed his chargesheet on 1 January 2013. “His absconding status will be changed only once he is produced in the trial court,” adds the lawyer, hopeful that this will be “soon”.

Shamir’s family cannot make much sense of all the hair-splitting legalese. They have no idea what ‘absconding’ means and believe Shamir is innocent. But at the moment, the question of his innocence or guilt has not even arisen, technically speaking. Under the so-called ‘judicial process’, he is the one evading trial—even as he languishes in jail.

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