‘IF YOU don’t want to find the terrorist, create one’, is a weapon that Delhi Police has been using for some time now, though it brings shame to the entire department and the country as well but who cares? After spending 14 years of his youthful life behind the bars, a Delhi youth Mohammad Aamir has walked out of jail after court declared him innocent of all charges in 18 out of 20 cases ‘fabricated’ by Delhi police against him.

The travesty of justice as it sounds, he was declared a proclaimed offender by the Rohtak Court in 2005 as he was lodged in Tihar jail and authorities there never bothered to produce him in the court. Here is something that will shock you. “They issued warrants against him, published his pictures in the newspapers and even after this, when he did not turn up for the hearing, they declared him a PO, or proclaimed offender. All this when he was actually lodged in a jail in Delhi called Tihar. I have never encountered something as bizarre as this,’ Rajesh Sharma, the lawyer who handled his Rohtak cases told the First Post.

Immediately after blast struck Delhi or other parts of the country, media mounts pressure and starts criticising the police for failing to provide security to residents. Police on its part doesn’t look for the clues or relies on partial investigation, it instead chooses to pounce on the members of a particular minority community and arrests some of them and claims major breakthroughs in solving terror cases. Then, police versions of the story are fed to the jingoistic corporate media through police sources and an accused is proven guilty in the media trial before the court trial would actually take off.

Exactly same thing happened in the bone-chilling winter of 1998. After spending two months at his elder sister, Sumaiya Chaman’s house in Karachi, Aamir returned to India via Samjhauta Express on 13 February 1998. On the eighth day of his return from the country, he was picked up by police at Bahadurgarh road, according to First Post. His lawyer ND Pancholi, revealing the psyche of Delhi police, told the Paper: “Police nabbed Aamir as he had all the right qualities: he was young, had a Pakistani connection and came from a poor family.”

The weirdest part of the whole police investigations is that not a single witness could prove that Aamir was involved, not only in one but 20-odd cases that the Delhi police had built against him. All the charges framed by the ‘efficient’ Delhi police fell null and void when court, according to First Post, on 9 January 2012 acquitted Aamir. “... it is clear that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove its case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt,” ruled the court.

In April 2003, a Delhi sessions court had sentenced him to life imprisonment for the Karol Bagh blast that killed one person. As many as 62 witnesses were examined in this case. In August 2006, the Delhi High Court quashed this order as the police could not provide any material to connect Aamir with the blast at Roshan Di Kulfi in Karol Bagh. “In the absence of any material to connect the accused with the blast at Roshan Di Kulfi, his mere presence would not be sufficient to bring home the guilt,” ruled the court.

This is just the tip of an iceberg and countless such cases have taken place and luckily, only few manage to reach the ears of the citizens. One thing is for sure that all the taxpayer’s money from the exchequer that is pumped into the working of elite investigative and security agencies is being wasted into the drains and rather fuelling a divide in the society. Instead of investigating and putting in hard work and time to nab the culprits, Delhi Police seem to be averse to move their lazy bums.

Another important aspect that we can term as the miscarriage of justice is that legal loopholes are forcing innocent people to stay behind the bars for years without a single crime. As an example, Aamir had to spend almost half a decade of his life inside various prisons and suddenly after 14 years he is declared innocent. Why can’t courts here decide the issues on the basis of witnesses and evidence, why can’t they decide in black and white? If prosecution comes up with meagre evidences, absolve the accused and prosecution has all the time in the world to gather the evidence, if they feel a person is guilty. Also, police officers who investigate and frame charges against people like Aamir should be punished as well. Why not create a legal provision so that innocents are not forced to stay behind bars and the perpetrators go scot-free.