Clad in a black burqa covering her from head to toe, 65-year-old Akhtari takes tired steps towards the lawyer’s chamber in Muzaffarnagar court. She doesn’t remember the number of times she has visited the premises. It’s been nearly 12 years, she says, recalling her painful journey which began when she lost her 25-year-old son, Amjad, in February 2007. The struggle only got tougher when she lost her husband, Khalid Khan, in 2011, she adds.
Amjad was killed in a police encounter in Muzaffarnagar’s Ratanpuri and the incident presents a grim reality of a “manufactured and fake encounter”, says Akhtari’s lawyer Qazi Naim.
Early years
Amjad was born and brought up in Roorkee’s Manglaur town. He received his education at a madrasa he attended till his teenage. His father tried to get him into his line of work, masonry, but Amjad had different plans. “He was different from the rest of us. He was jovial and every neighbour’s darling,” Akhtari recalls.
Around the age of 20 in the early 2000s, he moved to Saharanpur to live with his maternal uncle and aunt and became a truck driver to earn a living, which, his mother says, was “the worst decision of his life”.
Over a year after he moved to his uncle’s place, says Akhtari, during one of his visits back home, he told her that his “aunt was in a relationship with a policeman, constable Mir Hasan, who used to come home often and it did not look nice”.
He allegedly told this to his uncle too, but the man “didn’t take any action”. The policeman, the family claimed, was posted in Saharanpur at that time.
Amjad allegedly told Hasan not to visit his uncle’s home and end his relationship with his aunt. “I told him not to interfere in their family matter and not make a police officer his enemy but he did not listen,” she says.
Criminal cases
Soon after that a series of criminal charges were levelled against Amjad without any evidence, adds Akhtari.
In March 2005, a person identified as Zuber was shot dead in Saharanpur’s Mandi area and Amjad was named among the accused by the police on charges of murder and rioting. According to the police, Zuber was murdered by a gang of land grabbers for whom he was becoming a problem.
In April 2005, the police registered another FIR against Amjad on charges of attempt to murder. The complaint said that sub-inspector Pravin Kumar and a few other officers had received a tip-off that “Amjad, who was wanted in the Zuber murder case, was going towards Nawabganj”. The police said they saw Amjad coming along with another man and asked him to stop. The duo allegedly fired at the police party after which Amjad managed to flee while the other man was held.
In May 2005, another FIR was registered against Amjad and two others wherein the police alleged that SI Kumar, constable Hasan and a few others were travelling in a police vehicle when they saw three persons coming on a motorcycle and asked them to stop “suspecting something amiss”. The three allegedly fired at the police vehicle and were subsequently held. A case of attempt to murder and Arms Act was registered against the three, including Amjad.
In 2006, a city court acquitted Amjad in all three cases after finding the police version unsubstantiated. ’
A year later, in the early hours of February 3, 2007, Amjad was killed in an “encounter” with a police team including SI Kumar, constable Hasan, SI Iqbal Uzzama Khan and eight others, in Muzaffarnagar’s Ratanpuri. Iqbal was then posted in the Anti-Extortion Cell, Kumar was Ratanpuri’s Station Officer and Hasan was posted in the same police station.
The next day the headlines in the regional newspapers read “Uttaranchal ka shatir Amjad mara gaya (Uttaranchal’s notorious criminal Amjad shot dead)”, says Akhtari, adding that he was tagged a criminal despite being acquitted in all the cases.
She recalls that Amjad had left his uncle and aunt’s house and returned to Manglaur when cases started piling up against him.
The fateful night
On the night of February 1, Akhtari says, several policemen knocked on their door around 11 p.m. The family, which was watching television after having dinner, was taken aback as were the neighbours who saw the policemen taking Amjad with them.
“They said they wanted to ask him some questions and would send him back the next day, but they killed him instead,” the mother says.
On February 2, the family claims to have tried everything in its power to bring the son back. While the parents and other family members went to the Ratanpuri police station, some 90 km away from Manglaur, to look for the son, Amjad’s uncle Munavvar Khan, the family claims, went to the District Magistrate’s office and informed them that his nephew had been picked up by the police who may “try to implicate him in false cases or even kill him”. The family was suggested to do so by a lawyer they had contacted at the time.
On February 3, around 7 a.m., Amjad’s family was informed by the Manglaur police that he had been killed in Ratanpuri in an encounter. The family rushed to Muzaffarnagar only to find his body with several bullet injuries.
The police registered an attempt to murder case leading to the encounter, similar to the narrative presented in May 2005. The police said that the team led by Kumar was patrolling when it received an information that three criminals were coming from Khatauli on a motorcycle.
The officers intercepted them at Rampur junction and asked them to stop but they fired at them. “In retaliation”, police fired at them which led to the death of Amjad. The other two, the police said, managed to flee taking advantage of the dark night.
Endless wait
The family has been running from pillar to post since that day seeking justice for Amjad. A protest was organised on February 6, followed by endless court proceedings, but the wait is still not over.
The family approached Muzaffarnagar court in November 2007 with their complaint alleging that Amjad was killed in a fake encounter. In March 2008, the court ordered that it will get the matter investigated.
Over the next few years, the court proceedings went on and witnesses were heard. Neighbours Zinda Hasan, Abdul Manan, Mohd. Wasi, Mohd. Rashid and Husain Ahmed told the court that they saw the policemen taking Amjad from home.
Meanwhile, the police submitted their final report in the incident on May 30, 2007, stating that the two absconding persons could not be found and the investigation had been closed. The final report was signed by Inspector Ajay Chauhan, the second investigator in the case, who is now posted in Muzaffarnagar’s Crime Branch.
When questioned about the case, he claims to have “faint memory” of the incident as he was posted out a few months later and could not keep track.
Plea to rights panel
The family also approached National Human Rights Commission, which, it claims, conducted an independent investigation and ordered a compensation of ₹5lakh in January 2018. The family received the cheque in March last year; the money deducted from the salaries of the 11 officers involved in the case.
But soon after the compensation was given to the family, Iqbal, who retired as Deputy Superintendent of Police, lodged an FIR against all the witnesses in the case on charges of cheating and allegedly forging a letter sent to the District Magistrate on February 2, 2007, “based on which the compensation was given”.
“We got a stay on the arrest order from the court which said the police had to first submit an investigation report,” says advocate Naim.
The Muzaffarnagar police submitted a chargesheet in the case on January 3 this year, says Deputy Superintendent of Police Harish Bhadauria. “The magisterial enquiry found out that no such letter was submitted to the DM’s office in February 2007,” says the officer.
Akhtari approached the High Court in 2018 with a request to take action in her case. The court, on May 28, ordered the court concerned (Muzaffarnagar) to expedite the hearing in the matter and decide the same, preferably, within a period of three months of the order.
To the mother’s relief, in December 2018, the Muzaffarnagar court summoned the police officers involved in the encounter. They have been asked to appear before the court again on January 25.
“This order [December 2018] has given me some hope,” the mother says.
Lone battle
Akhtari has been fighting alone for the last eight years after her husband died of a heart attack. “The two of us always travelled together for all the proceedings in the case. He was more optimistic than me. He always used to say that we will get justice,” she recalls.
Now Akhtari goes to the court with her other children or relatives. She has 10 children, including two daughters; all aged between 18 and 45. Most of her sons are working as masons and one of the two daughters is married.
“In the last 11 years, there has not been a single marriage in my family though five of my children are of marriageable age. We have spent ₹9-₹10 lakh on the case so far. I thought I will get my daughter married with the compensation money but they slapped another case on us,” says Akhtari.
But she is relentless. “I want justice for my son... only then will I be at peace,” she says. “So many times my children have told me stop but I won’t.”
Even as Akhtari wait for justice continues, one of the accused policemen, Kumar, passed away three years ago after a prolonged fight with cancer.
Today Akhtari’s most favourite memory of Amjad is from January 26, 2007, a few days before he was killed. “He had organised Republic Day celebrations a nearby local school run by one of our neighbours. I remember he bought sweets for all the children and taught them a song ‘Ye Hindustan hamara hai’.”
She is looking forward to the Republic Day celebrations this year too, hoping for some positive news from the hearing a day before.