Little Terrorist

By Syed Nazakat in Delhi

The playful spark of a 14-year-old is missing in Irfan’s eyes. Instead there is helplessness, pain, horror and a lurking fear. The dark shades could make him anything—a crusader, a criminal or plain timid. The training ground was a forlorn torture chamber somewhere in Gujarat.
The boy was picked up on May 25 last year allegedly by the Gujarat Police, who were in fact looking for his father, Mohammed Azhar. Irfan still remembers the white Tavera (GCIG-4522) that screeched to a halt in front of him as he was trying to cross the road outside his shop in Seelampur. Two men got out, held a pistol to his head and pushed him into the car. Later, they pinned him down with their feet, kicked him in the torso and slapped him several times. And when he tried to speak, he got a sharp jab in the ribs.
Lying on the floor of the car, the boy had no idea where he was being taken. His captors drove whole day and night and finally he was pulled out from the car into a detention centre, which had two black cells. He was dumped into one of them. There were no windows in the cell, yet from the honking of the vehicles and the occasional noise of a crowd, he guessed the place to be not far from the city.
The detention was almost a Guantanamo or an Abu Ghraib from his narration. His interrogators wore civilian dress, but were near cannibals in attitude. Irfan was interrogated by a tall person, whose name he doesn’t remember. “The man would brutally beat me up and tell me, ‘As long as your father does not surrender, we will not let you go’.”

Back home, Irfan’s mother, Tasleema, was frantically searching for him. Fortunately, his friends had seen the number plate of the Tavera. The family complained to the Seelampur police station, and three days later, Tasleema was told that her son was in the custody of Gujarat Police in Ahmedabad.She then filed a habeas corpus petition before the Delhi High Court, which directed the police to release the boy. Thus, after 10 days of detention, Irfan was brought back and released. On the court’s direction, the Seelampur police have lodged an FIR against the Gujarat Police.

Irfan’s tiny body is now a shambles. His mother says she was shattered when she heard about the torture her son had to bear. “Since his release, he is being treated for abdominal pain and discomfort,” she says. The boy’s ordeal has not ended yet. His family gets threat calls from the Gujarat Police, warning them not to appear before the court. Irfan’s father hasn’t yet returned home, making his family prone to more police harassment.
A day before the last hearing in the case, the police raided his home at 3 a.m. “We have lodged a report against the Gujarat Police,” Tasleema says. The Seelampur police station refused to comment on the case, but confirmed that an FIR has been filed against the Gujarat Police.
We got to know of the depth of Irfan’s fear only when we got up to leave. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded for our help. “Please save me from the police,” he says. He fears they might any day return for him.
(Name of the boy has been changed to protect identity)

(THE WEEK, July12, 2009)