New Delhi: The viral video showed a couple of men beating drums as police personnel stood by. The setting was not a government function or a rally. The men were providing a soundtrack to the demolition of a Muslim family’s home in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, and the beats of the drum were accompanied by DJ music.
That was July 2023.
An adult and a minor from the family — along with a minor friend of the latter — were accused of spitting on a Hindu procession passing through their lanes. The minors had been detained, and the adult — Adnan, 18 — arrested.
According to police, the case was based on the accounts of Sawan Lot, the complainant, and an “eyewitness” identified as Ajay Khatri.
Within five months, however, the case turned on its head. Last month, on 15 December, the Madhya Pradesh High Court released Adnan on bail, on the grounds that Lot and Khatri had “turned hostile”.
The duo’s statements to the magistrate dated October, accessed by ThePrint, say they didn’t identify the accused, and hadn’t seen the incident happen either. They said the police had made them sign some papers and they didn’t know what they were signing.
Cue to the present, while the police insist the case against the trio still stands, the family remains without a roof of their own. Meanwhile, questions loom over the demolition of the family’s home, carried out with great fanfare, no less.
Officially, the house was demolished for being violative of municipal norms. But the exercise was carried out two days after the boys were detained, and in a state where the government has openly talked about targeting “rioters” with demolitions.
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‘Dangerous building’
Ashraf Hussain Mansoori, who is the father of Adnan and one of the minors accused, said their demolished home — a three-storey structure in Ujjain’s Chandrashekhar Azad lane — was built 40 years ago.
Speaking to ThePrint, he claimed the family was only informed about the demolition an hour before the bulldozers arrived on 19 July.
“A notice was issued an hour before, the authorities said that our house was weak and old, and would collapse,” he said.
Adnan’s lawyer Devendra Sengar said the “boys were taken away on 17 July and they came and served the family a back-dated (demolition) notice on 19 July and demolished the building”.
The notice, Ashraf said, was dated 15 July. It was pasted on the family’s shop, on the ground floor, and said the “dangerous” building should be razed in line with the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961, or it would be done by the authorities.
“Nobody listened to our pleas,” said Ashraf, adding that they had “all the papers for the house”.
When the Ujjain Municipal Corporation came to demolish the house, he said, there was a crowd there to watch the demolition and “even a DJ”. “They played songs and drums when our house was razed to the ground,” he said.
While the family has repaired some of the damage inflicted on the shop and started it again, Ashraf said they are still living in his “brother’s house in the same lane.”
ThePrint reached Ujjain Municipal Commissioner Ashish Pathak through calls and messages for a comment, and a response is awaited.
Last year, responding to questions about the “celebratory demolition”, the police had just said that the law mandates them to “make an announcement before an encroachment is removed”.
There have been multiple instances in Madhya Pradesh where “anti-encroachment” drives have been conducted in areas where people accused of rioting live, “to send a message”.
This form of crackdowns has been condemned by legal experts who question the fact that those targeted with demolition aren’t given time to appeal, and how encroachment laws are invoked to punish other alleged crimes.
‘Don’t recognise accused’
Ashraf’s sons were taken away on 17 July over allegations of “outraging religious feelings”, accused of spitting on Mahakal Baba’s palki as the procession moved through the area.
According to the minors’ bail order, accessed by ThePrint, Lot and his friends (including Khatri) came to the police station at Kharakuwan and reported that, on the evening of 17 July, “some unknown boys from the terrace of the building” started spitting on the “Mahakal procession… when it came near Tanki Square”.
Based on this complaint, it adds, police registered a case.
A similar claim is made in the report filed by police after the completion of the investigation, a copy of which is with ThePrint.
This report, dated 9 September, quotes Lot as saying the spitting incident was recorded on a phone by another person.
However, in his statement before the magistrate, recorded 28 October, Lot said he “doesn’t recognise” Adnan and the two minors. According to the statement, he only came to know of the incident upon reaching the police station.
“Upon reaching the police station, I came to know that someone spat on the yatris. I was asked by the policemen there to sign some papers and I followed the instructions,” he said in the statement, which has been accessed by ThePrint. “I didn’t see anyone spit. The policemen didn’t tell me where I had signed.”
Khatri said the same thing, that he didn’t identify the accused either. “We saw a crowd in front of the police station. We saw people from Hindu organisations and others as well. The police made us sign some documents,” he said in his statement before the magistrate.
However, police say Lot and Khatri turning hostile doesn’t change the facts of the matter.
Speaking to ThePrint, Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Sharma said “this isn’t a standalone case of a complainant or eyewitness turning hostile”.
“We have filed a charge sheet against the accused. There are statements of neighbours as well as video evidence of the incident,” he added.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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