Wife of train blast accused alleges harassment by ATS

Mumbai: Displaying rare courage, the wife of an accused in the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts case, has demanded action against the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for harassing her, said her lawyer.

Saeedun-Nissa Ali, 42, the wife of Mohammed Ali, a bead seller from a slum in Mumbai, has also demanded medical compensation, saying "mental torture" by the ATS had affected her health. Her husband is lodged in the Arthur Road Central Jail for the past seven years.

An official from the home department, who declined to be named, said he could not comment on the issue without examining the complaint by the aggrieved woman.

In a letter to Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh, with a copy to the chief justice of Bombay High Court, Saeedun-Nissa claimed ATS officials used to barge into her hutment in the Shivaji Nagar slum at any hour and at times assaulted her children, according to her lawyer and Jamiat-ul-Ulema secretary Gulzar Azmi.

"We will wait for a month with regard to the demand for her piling medical bills and deteriorating health condition. If there is no response, we shall be constrained to move the Bombay High Court," Azmi, who has offered legal aid to Saeedun-Nissa, said.

The letter's copies have also been sent to Maharasthra Control of Organised Crime Act Special Judge YD Shinde, National Human Rights Commission and National Commission for Women.

Azmi contended that Saeedun-Nissa had fallen victim to high-blood pressure, severe diabetes and related ailments following alleged continuous harassment by certain ATS officers, whom she has also named in her complaint.

Saeedun-Nissa, the slum-dweller from Govandi in north-east Mumbai, also recounted the horrors she has been subjected to in the past few years.

"My husband, a bead seller, was named an accused in the blasts only because he dared to complain against a video-parlour showing pornographic films," she said.

The consequence of this was that whenever there were any terror incident anywhere in the country, police and ATS officials barged into their house, she said.

"They are never accompanied by women constables and many times they slapped my 12-year-old son," she said.

She said the physical and mental torture and public humiliation by the police had reduced her to a wreck.

Besides seeking medical compensation, Saeedun-Nissa has also demanded that women constables be posted outside her hutment to prevent harassment by the ATS, Azmi said.