“He has never visited any part of Andhra Pradesh during
his lifetime, yet a team of the National Investigation Agency, picked
up my son Mandeep Singh from Chandigarh on March 9, produced him before a
court in Adilabad district on March 16 and booked him under the
provisions of the Andhra Public Security Act [APSA],” lamented his
70-year-old father, Balbir Singh, a practicing lawyer in Yamunanagar
town of Haryana.
Mr. Singh was talking to The Hindu
at the Sector 17 shopping plaza, where a small group of activists from a
discussion forum, Lokayat, and the Haryana unit of the People’s Union
for Civil Rights (PUCR), organised a protest against the arrest of
Mandeep Singh and Pradeep Singh.
Giving an account of
the incident, Pradeep Singh, who is a student of Punjab Engineering
College here, said that on March 9, he was riding his motorcycle with
Mandeep on the pillion when at the Sector 23-24 traffic lights’ point,
an occupant in an SUV that stopped on their side, pointed a gun at them
and asked them to sit in the vehicle.
Pradeep, whose
family originally belongs to Fazilka town of Punjab, but is now settled
in Rajasthan, works with Students for Society (SFS), which he claims is
not politically aligned. He said that they were kept in a National
Investigation Agency (NIA) office in Noida and subjected to sustained
questioning and mentally tortured through threats of being killed in a
staged encounter, denial of rest and food.
While they
were proceeding toward a destination in Andhra Pradesh, the arrested
persons raised an alarm in Mathura town where they managed to convince
their captors to stop the vehicle. The NIA team, along with the arrested
youths, were detained and later released by the Mathura police. On the
way to Andhra Pradesh, the NIA officials stopped the vehicle and
threatened to shoot the youth on at least three occasions. However, they
let off Pradeep at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh on March 18, while Mandeep
was taken to Macherial police station of Adilabad district in Andhra
Pradesh, where a case under Sector 8 of APSA was slapped against him.
Pradeep
said that he shared with the NIA all he knew about Mandeep, whom he
first came in contact with about one and half years’ ago. As was common
for all members of his SFS organisation, he had helped Mandeep get
medical treatment for some pain in his knee. Subsequently, Mandeep
developed a cardiac complication, for which he was under treatment at
the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI).
While
PUCR activists claimed that Mandeep was pursuing a degree in law, his
father said that Mandeep was jobless after having completed a degree in
hotel management. Mr. Singh accepted that as a student, his son was
associated with Jagrook Chhatar Morcha (JCM), which had sympathies with
extreme Left organisations. He said that the organisation was neither
banned, nor was his son involved in any illegal act. He demanded relief
for his son and claimed that as JCM was not banned, Mandeep could not be
booked under Section 8 of the APSA.
However, Mr.
Singh said that the Deputy Superintendent of the Jail at Adilabad had
informed him about the bail that had been granted to Mandeep, who was
required to furnish two surety bonds and mandated to present himself at
the police station, for one day every month. “How is he expected to
travel from Yamunanagar to Adilabad every month?” he asked.
Convenor
of Lokayat, Arti, said the NIA action amounted to contravention of the
federal structure of the constitution, as both Mandeep and Pradeep were
picked up without following procedures and officially involving local
authorities. She said that the NIA had also violated Supreme Court
guidelines on the issue.
Ms. Arti said that the civil
liberties’ groups would pursue the matter till the “false” case against
Mandeep was withdrawn and action initiated against the NIA officials
involved in the gross violation.
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