Though the courts have acquitted them, police still view them as suspects. Come Ganesh festival, Bonalu, Milad-un-Nabi or any other festival that has the police on stilts, the trio is summoned to the police station and detained for days.
For Mohd Shahed Ali (21), Mohd Wahed Ali (23) and Mohd Irshad Ali (24), all brothers, the ‘harassment’ repeats week after week and month after month without a pause. They were arrested, along with five others, in two cases of communal rioting (FIR No. 47/2010 and 56/2010) at Shahalibanda police station in 2010. A communal rowdy sheet was opened against them the same year.
After police failed to prove the charges against them – of rioting, arson and promoting enmity between different communities – the trio was acquitted by the court in June 2012. A year later, police continue to maintain their rowdy sheets.
While Irshad, an Intermediate dropout, now runs a newspaper stall in the morning and an eatery in the evening, his brother Wahed, also an Intermediate dropout, is a newspaper hawker. The third, Shahed, who appeared for the SSC exam at the time of his arrest in 2010, now works as a salesman at a private dairy.
“My children are unable to get good jobs because police refuse to issue the clearance certificate which is sought by job givers,” says Naseema Begum, their mother. She breaks down as she recalls the terrible time the family had going around courts for two years. The verdict has acquitted her children, but has not brought the desired relief.
The boys’ only sister, who is now 19-years-old, is unable to get a suitable alliance.
“People do not respond to the proposal as soon as they get to know about the rowdy sheets,” says Wahed.
After the acquittal, Irshad had applied for a passport to go abroad for employment. “The Special Branch officials said I cannot get a passport as I have a rowdy sheet against me,” he says.
The family had even approached Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi and the local legislator Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri, but to no avail.
“Police officials assured the public representative that the case would be reviewed, but nothing has happened so far,” they say. The family had also represented the matter to the then DCP Akun Sabarwal. However, the official refused to close the rowdy sheet citing departmental rules, they add.